Introducing a New MySQL Component for Flexible Performance Instrumentation ??

MySQL’s performance_schema provides performance metrics grouped by fixed dimensions like account, host, and user. These are very good, but under some circumstances, folks running MySQL such as myself (and perhaps, you) encounter limitations when needing to get insights into performance by other attributes. For example:

• You may have a monolithic app that uses a single set of credentials to connect to MySQL, but you need to monitor performance per app API endpoint or by the app team responsible for different components of the app.
• There may be a proxy between your app and MySQL, causing MySQL to only see the credentials of the proxy, not the app-specific credentials.

In cases like these, MySQL’s performance schema falls short in terms of grouping metrics based on application-defined attributes.

The Solution: Customizable Query Grouping via Query Comments

To solve this, I created a MySQL component that allows you to group performance metrics by any custom label specified in query comments. Simply add a label like

/* WORKLOAD_NAME=<your_arbitrary_label_here> */         

to your queries, and the component will capture key performance metrics grouped by the label. The metrics are cumulative and include:

• Query count.
• Rows examined.
• Rows returned.
• Rows affected.
• Total execution time.

By capturing these metrics, you can gain valuable insights into query performance tailored to your needs. This component is open-sourced under the GPLv2 license and available on GitHub.

Why You Should Try This

This solution is especially useful for teams managing large applications or those using proxies between their app and MySQL. It enables more granular and flexible query performance analysis, helping database operators and developers optimize their applications.

Check it out, explore the code, and feel free to contribute or raise issues via GitHub. Your feedback is welcome!

Disclaimer: This is my very first MySQL component and I hadn't done any C++ in a long time, but I am happy to improve it based on your input.