Chapter 27. Monitoring Database Activity
- Table of Contents
- 27.1.Standard Unix Tools
- 27.2.The Statistics Collector
- 27.1.Standard Unix Tools
- 27.2.1.Statistics Collection Configuration
- 27.2.2.Viewing Collected Statistics
- 27.2.3.Statistics Functions
- 27.2.2.Viewing Collected Statistics
- 27.2.1.Statistics Collection Configuration
- 27.3.Viewing Locks
- 27.4.Dynamic Tracing
- 27.4.1.Compiling for Dynamic Tracing
- 27.4.2.Built-in Probes
- 27.4.3.Using Probes
- 27.4.4.Defining New Probes
- 27.4.2.Built-in Probes
- 27.4.1.Compiling for Dynamic Tracing
A database administrator frequently wonders,"What is the system doing right now?" This chapter discusses how to find that out.
Several tools are available for monitoring database activity and analyzing performance. Most of this chapter is devoted to describingPostgreSQL's statistics collector, but one should not neglect regular Unix monitoring programs such asps,top,iostat, andvmstat. Also, once one has identified a poorly-performing query, further investigation might be needed usingPostgreSQL'sEXPLAIN command.Section 14.1 discussesEXPLAIN and other methods for understanding the behavior of an individual query.