First published: May 13, 2022 @ 6:00 pm
NoSQL database is not just an old technology anymore. It has become trendy in various industries in the last few years. The popularity of NoSQL databases is growing because of their lower costs and high performance.
This article will talk about 8 NoSQL database optimization tips that you can use to make your database perform better.
How to Optimize NoSQL Database
1. Indexing
Indexing is one of the best practices that you can use to maintain performance and effectiveness. When you index your data, it helps reduce the amount of I/O required to retrieve information from your tables.
It also improves performance by reducing the number of disks required to read disk data.
Creating an index for every table in your database is not necessary. But it is recommended that you create an index for tables containing lots of columns, those most commonly used, and those with high cardinality.
If there are several indexes for a single table, each index would have a small set of rows. Likewise, each index would have a different set of rows. For example, a single customer document can include customer information, customer orders, customer shipping information, and customer billing information.
If there are multiple indexes for a single table, each index would be composed of a similar set of rows. For example, all columns in an index would be equal.
There are many types because of increasing, but you should use the most appropriate ones for your application. You can find out which index type is most suitable for your database by looking at the kind of queries you have against your database.
If you find that a specific index type performs better than another, then you should use that index type.
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2. Database Size
If you do not plan to add any new data to your database, then it is recommended that you do not increase the size of your database. Increasing the size of your database will cause additional I/O operations which can affect performance.
When it comes to keeping a smaller database size, the other important reason is that it is recommended that you reduce the fragmentation. You should also ensure that performance is maintained by avoiding index fragmentation and file fragmentation.
Index fragmentation occurs when all the rows in an index become fragmented into different pages due to their sizes. For example, if there are two columns in an index, one column has 100 rows while another has 50 rows.
File fragmentation occurs when the files are filled with different pages due to the large data size. For example, if there are two columns in an index, one column has 100 rows while another has 50 rows.
When these problems occur, it would be difficult for users to read or write data.
3. Multiple Tables
When you have several tables in your database, then it is recommended that you do not create a new table for every single table in your database. This is because each table would require a different index (since the columns of each table are other).
In this case, you should use the existing indexes for the current tables to ensure that the data can be read and written efficiently. You can also use indexes to separate and organize your data into different tables to be accessed efficiently.
Your goal is to reduce operational expenses by reducing your cluster resources (CPUs, memory, disk space), changing your instance configuration (RAM, CPU cores, disk size), or reducing storage requirements (disk space).
4. Concatenation
If you are using concatenation in your database, then it is recommended that you should remove it from your database. When concatenation is used, there would be an extra step required for all inserts and updates.
A single search index means you need to create an extensive index that combines all the fields you’d ever want to search.
This step can slow down performance by causing extra workload for I/O operations to perform when a new row is inserted or updated into a table. For example, this would happen when rows are being created or deleted.
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5. Truncate Table
When there are many columns in a single table collection, then it is recommended that you do not create more than one row per column in your database. This will cause additional I/O operations, and an extra disk seeks to retrieve data from the disk.
If you are using your database to store images, then it is recommended that you do not use concatenation. Instead, it would help if you created an image column in your table and index the image column so that you can use it to retrieve images efficiently.
6. Reduce Table Size
If you have been using the same table for a long time, then it is recommended that you should consider reducing the size of your table. Reducing the size of your table will cause fewer I/O operations and fewer disk seeks to retrieve data from the disk.
When there are too many rows in a single table, then it is recommended that you reduce the number of rows in your table.
7. Use Auto-Increment Columns
If there are several columns in a single table, it is recommended that each of these columns have an auto-incrementing ID. Thus, it would be unique.
This would help improve performance by eliminating duplicate IDs when rows are inserted into a table. This can happen since each row would have its unique ID.
8. Enable Statistics
When a new query or statement is executed against a database, then statistics are calculated and stored in memory by default. This helps improve performance by reducing I/O operations.
If you do not want to store statistics in memory, you can disable them. This would help improve performance operation by reducing the latency.
Automate Your Business Now
You should always test your applications and see how they perform before implementing any of these tips because there are various types of queries. In addition, each one will require a different kind of indexing and concatenation.
You should also test how well your database performs after implementing these optimizations to make sure that they will improve performance.
To find more tips on handling databases and automating your business, check out our articles on WorkDeputy!
