Stack Metrics - Database Layer Metrics¶

Database metrics¶

Troubleshooting¶

Use the information in this section to help you troubleshoot database-related issues with your Cloud Platform application.

• CPU and memory usage:

  These metrics can be used to determine how close your database infrastructure is to capacity, and they are often impacted by traffic levels, cron activity, and both the frequency and the complexity of queries to your application’s databases. Although Acquia monitors for platform impairment, database infrastructure are often able to continue responding to queries even when CPU and memory are at or near capacity. If you notice that your database tier is routinely hitting CPU or memory capacity, take the following steps to reduce resource utilization or to diagnose the root cause:

  • If the CPU or memory spikes are associated with traffic, increasing your application’s external (Varnish®) caching settings (including implementing or optimizing Drupal caching) can significantly reduce CPU and memory consumption.
  • CPU and memory spikes can also be associated with frequent or resource-intensive cron jobs. Reducing the frequency or complexity of cron tasks can immediately reduce CPU and memory consumption.
  • Utilize an Application Performance Monitoring service (such as New Relic) to identify if the spikes in CPU and memory are associated with specific complex or slow queries on your website. Reducing the complexity or frequency of queries sent by pages or features (such as Views) can often reduce application CPU and memory utilization, especially if those pages are popular destinations for your visitors.

  If it is determined that additional CPU or memory are required for your applications to remain performant, you can manually increase your infrastructure’s resource capacity or contact Acquia Support to determine what options are available.

• Storage % used and Storage used:

  For environments running on Acquia’s Cloud Classic infrastructure, your applications will cease to operate normally once storage has reached 100%. Acquia recommends that you remain under 90% storage utilization at all times, while also monitoring the rate that your infrastructure is filling up. At 95% full, Acquia will perform an emergency proactive upsize for Cloud Platform Enterprise customers whose environments are not yet running on Acquia Cloud Next technologies. However, if you want to schedule an upsize before your infrastructure reaches capacity, contact Acquia Support. The Acquia Cloud Next infrastructure can dynamically scale storage capacities based on need.

• MySQL slow queries:

  At lower frequencies, these queries will not have a measurable impact on website performance. If, however, queries take significantly longer than one second to complete or if they happen in rapid succession, the queries can quickly stack up during periods of high traffic, causing uncached page requests to load more slowly. Use an application performance monitoring service (such as New Relic) or analyze your slow query logs to determine the source of these queries, and to also determine if optimizations can be made to the code or features which trigger them to reduce their time to completion.