System Performance

About System Performance

In a properly designed system, the following factors play a vital role and affect the overall performance:

  • Applications

  • Number of CPUs

  • Sufficient Memory

  • Sufficient Input/Output

  • Efficient Network

If the server machine, where the database runs, is not powerful enough to perform the database operations by large number of simultaneous users, the application will not run satisfactorily. The number of processors (CPUs) and the amount of physical memory (RAM) are of utmost importance. Even if the hardware is configured properly to perform the current operations and for future growth, to ensure optimum performance, you need to answer the following questions:

  • What if only 10 percent of the CPUs are utilized and the rest are idling most of the time

  • Is it configured for peak-time operations

  • Does it have enough memory for enough caching

  • Do we see a lot of swapping and paging occurring at peak load time

Poorly designed SQLs might incur a large amount of Input/Output. However, with well designed SQLs we always see Input/Output problems that come from hardware limitations. This leads to increased wait time, which affects the performance. We have to investigate if there is an Input/Output problem, so that the DBA will install the database with ample considerations in the areas of disks, SCSI/fibre-optic controllers, striping, mirroring, and so on. The hardware scalability should be closely investigated.