Early indications of a performance problem are often vague; users might report that the system seems sluggish. Users might complain that they cannot get all their work done, that transactions take too long to complete, that queries take too long to process, or that the application slows down at certain times during the day. To determine the nature of the problem, you must measure the actual use of system resources and evaluate the results.
Users typically report performance problems in the following situations:
To maintain optimum performance for your database applications, develop a plan for measuring system performance, making adjustments to maintain good performance and taking corrective measures when performance degrades. Regular, specific measurements can help you to anticipate and correct performance problems. By recognizing problems early, you can prevent them from affecting users significantly.
An iterative approach to optimizing database server performance is recommended. If repeating the steps found in the following list does not produce the desired improvement, insufficient hardware resources or inefficient code in one or more client applications might be causing the problem.