Database failure could turn into an ordeal for CTOs and IT Managers. Making sure that database systems operate efficiently is a core requirement of modern IT management. Several tools can help database administrators monitor, maintain, and improve the performance of databases. But before considering the need for database performance software, it's essential first to understand database performance.

What is Database Performance?

Database Performance is how fast the database responds to the requests of accessing data. Although it might sound simple, it isn't very easy, especially for DBA, who spend most of their time ensuring high performance of the database.

Why is Database Performance Crucial for your Business?

Database Performance depends on several operations on the data they access from the database. Therefore, any slowdown from the database could consequently slow down the whole process, causing a negative experience for the end-user and tarnishing your company's image.

Database performance software can recognize bottlenecks and points of contention, control workload and throughput, monitor storage space, and view your system and DBMS resource usage.

Database performance problems require pinpointing the specific obstacle so that tools can be used to find a solution. Database performance tools can help find the issues and implement a solution to the problem.

There are five factors that influence database performance: workload, throughput, resources, optimization, and contention.

The workload defines demand. It is a combination of online transactions, batch jobs, data warehousing analysis, and system commands delivered through the DBMS. It can vary drastically from second to second. Sometimes workload can be predicted, but at other times it is unpredictable. The overall workload can have a significant impact on database performance.

Throughput describes the capability to process data. It is a compound of I/O and CPU speed, parallel capabilities, the efficiency of the operating system, and system software.

Disk, cache controllers, and microcode are hardware and software tools of the system are known as resources. 

All systems can be optimized, but relational database systems are unique in that query optimization is mostly achieved by the DBMS internally.

When the demand (workload) for a particular resource is high, contention can happen. The contention refers to two or more components of the workload that attempt to use a single resource differently. As contention rises, throughput is reduced.

Learning about database performance is a must to ensure the efficiency of your database environment adequately. With a sound definition in hand, managing database performance turns into an achievable task.