You'll find several books on basic or advanced MySQL performance, but nothing in between. That's because explaining MySQL performance without addressing its complexity is difficult. This practical book bridges the gap by teaching software engineers mid-level MySQL knowledge beyond the fundamentals, but well shy of deep-level internals required by database administrators (DBAs).

Daniel Nichter shows you how to apply the best practices and techniques that directly affect MySQL performance. You'll learn how to improve performance by analyzing query execution, indexing for common SQL clauses and table joins, optimizing data access, and understanding the most important MySQL metrics. You'll also discover how replication, transactions, row locking, and the cloud influence MySQL performance.

• Understand why query response time is the North Star of MySQL performance
• Learn query metrics in detail, including aggregation, reporting, and analysis
• See how to index effectively for common SQL clauses and table joins
• Explore the most important server metrics and what they reveal about performance
• Dive into transactions and row locking to gain deep, actionable insight
• Achieve remarkable MySQL performance at any scale

Daniel Nichter is a DBA with over 15 years of experience with MySQL. He started optimizing MySQL performance in 2004 while working in a data center. Soon after, he created HackMySQL.com to share information and tools about MySQL. Daniel is most known for the tools he published during his eight-year tenure at Percona, several of which remain the de-facto standard and in use at the largest tech companies in the world. He is also a MySQL Community Award winner, conference speaker, and wide-ranging open-source contributor. Daniel currently works as a platform engineer at Square, a fintech company with thousands of MySQL servers and hundreds of software engineers.