Skip to Content
High Performance MySQL, 3rd Edition
book

High Performance MySQL, 3rd Edition

by Baron Schwartz, Peter Zaitsev, Vadim Tkachenko
March 2012
Intermediate to advanced
823 pages
29h 40m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from High Performance MySQL, 3rd Edition

Chapter 6. Query Performance Optimization

In the previous chapters we explained schema optimization and indexing, which are necessary for high performance. But they aren’t enough—you also need to design your queries well. If your queries are bad, even the best-designed schema and indexes will not perform well.

Query optimization, index optimization, and schema optimization go hand in hand. As you gain experience writing queries in MySQL, you will learn how to design tables and indexes to support efficient queries. Similarly, what you learn about optimal schema design will influence the kinds of queries you write. This process takes time, so we encourage you to refer back to these three chapters as you learn more.

This chapter begins with general query design considerations—the things you should consider first when a query isn’t performing well. We then dig much deeper into query optimization and server internals. We show you how to find out how MySQL executes a particular query, and you’ll learn how to change the query execution plan. Finally, we’ll look at some places MySQL doesn’t optimize queries well and explore query optimization patterns that help MySQL execute queries more efficiently.

Our goal is to help you understand deeply how MySQL really executes queries, so you can reason about what is efficient or inefficient, exploit MySQL’s strengths, and avoid its weaknesses.

Why Are Queries Slow?

Before trying to write fast queries, remember that it’s all about response time. Queries ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

High Performance MySQL, 2nd Edition

High Performance MySQL, 2nd Edition

Jeremy D. Zawodny, Derek J. Balling, Baron Schwartz, Peter Zaitsev, Arjen Lentz, Vadim Tkachenko
High Performance MySQL, 4th Edition

High Performance MySQL, 4th Edition

Silvia Botros, Jeremy Tinley
Learning MySQL, 2nd Edition

Learning MySQL, 2nd Edition

Vinicius M. Grippa, Sergey Kuzmichev
Learning MySQL

Learning MySQL

Saied M.M. Tahaghoghi, Hugh E. Williams

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781449332471Errata Page