What Does Database Performance Monitoring Mean?
Database performance monitoring is the act of measuring the performance of a given database in real time in order to determine problems and other factors that may cause problems in the future. It is also a good way to determine which areas of the database can be enhanced or optimized to increase efficiency and performance. This is usually done through monitoring software and tools either built in to the database management software or installed from third-party providers.
Techopedia Explains Database Performance Monitoring
Database performance monitoring is an active endeavor that is done to find problems and fix them, as well as to find ways of improving database performance. Through various tools and interfaces, a database administrator can monitor the performance of various portions of the database serving different applications and will be able to get visibility into the application’s database performance through a specialized UI or a Web interface.
The main goal of database performance monitoring is to assess how a database server is performing, both hardware and software. This involves taking regular snapshots of performance indicators over time in order to determine the exact time that problems such as bottlenecks occur to be able to gain insight on what exactly caused the problems at that exact time and hopefully find a good solution. This is because most problems occur at different times, and it is simply not possible for one administrator to monitor the performance in real time all the time. So, looking at historical data is usually the approach to monitoring. Most monitoring tools have some sort of alarm and notification system to notify the administrator of ongoing problems.
The benefits of database performance monitoring are as follows:
- Determine whether performance can be improved
- Determine performance and security flaws by evaluating application and user activity
- Troubleshoot and debug problems in application components using the database