PostgreSQL 9.0 High Performance

Chapter 10. Query Optimization

For some database administrators and application developers, query optimization is the most important part of database performance tuning. Earlier chapters have wandered some distance from there, because if your fundamental server setup isn't good, no amount of query tuning will help you. But things like selecting good hardware for a database server are rare. Figuring out why a query is slow and how to improve it is something you can expect to happen all the time. This is particularly true because query plans drift over time, and some aspects of your database will become less efficient. Maintenance to improve the latter problem is covered in the next few chapters. How queries execute and improving that execution ...