New MySQL Setup For Faster Query Processing
Update
We’re currently migrating all our servers to MySQL 8. Learn more about the migration process in our blog post.
Two of the most frequent reasons a site might be slow are unoptimized PHP processes and heavy MySQL queries. Website code optimization is always a crucial part of the constant battle for more website speed. However, webmasters hosting with SiteGround, have always had a reliable ally by their side in this quest.
Recently we have announced the new Ultrafast PHP, which significantly speeds up the processing of PHP scripts and improve the website performance up to 30%.
As a natural next step in our efforts to offer a premium and superfast service, we deployed a server-side solution to optimise database queries which has already brought down the number of slow queries between 10 and 20 times!
What are slow MySQL queries and why they matter ?
If you are managing an active site with a database, you probably understand that when a visitor enters your site, there are tons of scripts that start running, some of which ask your database for information. For example, if you have an online shop and a visitor is trying to purchase an item, your store should check for its availability in the database and display if it’s possible to be ordered. That check triggers a MySQL query. And depending on how that query is written it may be quite heavy and time-consuming to be processed by the server. For you as a webmaster, these slow queries are a problem because you will be losing clients. You know how visitors drop out of the site when they have to wait longer than 2-3 seconds for a page to load? Well, you get it. For us as your host, we don’t like it when our servers get throttled processing too many slow queries because this means that the CPU and RAM of the machine get blocked and cannot be used for other processes, which are also important for yours and the other websites hosted on the server.
What did we do?
The battle with slow MySQL queries is an ongoing process, which involves both the webmaster and the host. That is why we recently launched a new MySQL setup on our servers, which takes an innovative approach to distributing the server RAM and allocating it to the MySQL. The new setup allows a much higher number of parallel requests to be processed simultaneously and this has a great impact on the effective handling of heavy MySQL queries. So great that the Sys Admins, watching the server load after the new MySQL setup launch, still don’t believe it – they saw a drop in slow queries between 10 and 20 times!
All of our latest service improvements such as the Ultrafast PHP and now the MySQL setup are possible thanks to two things – the Google Cloud platform and the switch from cPanel to Site Tools. Since moving to Google Cloud, we upgraded our server configurations with more RAM. The RAM unit price is not cheaper, but working in the cloud offers possibilities for better distribution of that resource among different machines. And the fact that we don’t comply with third-party’s software resource requirements such as cPanel, gives us more freedom to innovate. Our DevOps feel empowered to create and keep developing smart technologies that benefit the greater majority of the sites we host spot on!
Who gets it?
Everyone hosted on our shared Site Tools servers already got the new MySQL setup! If you have been seeing an enhancement in the performance for the last week or so, it’s because of the new setup.
That means it’s less likely that you hear from us asking you to fix a slow query and “socially-distancing” your site due to that. Fewer slow queries, faster servers, less hassle for you!
Cloud accounts are also scheduled to receive the new MySQL setup by the end of February, 2021.
Still a SiteGround client on cPanel? We expect to migrate everyone by the end of March 2021 so all you need to do is wait just a little bit longer.
