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Response Time Distribution

The slow query log provides exact information about queries that take a long time to execute. Sometimes there are a large number of queries that each take a short amount of time to execute. This feature provides a tool for analyzing that information by counting and displaying the number of queries according to the length of time they took to execute. The query execution time begins afterthe initial locks are acquired. The user can define time intervals that divide the range from 0 to positive infinity into smaller intervals and then collect the number of commands whose execution times fall into each of those intervals.

Note that in a replication environment, the server will not take into account any queries executed by the replica SQL threads (whether they are slow or not) for the time distribution.

Each interval is described as:

(range_base ^ n; range_base ^ (n+1)]

The range_base is some positive number (see Limitations). The interval is defined as the difference between two nearby powers of the range base.

For example, if the range base=10, we have the following intervals:

(0; 10 ^ -6], (10 ^ -6; 10 ^ -5], (10 ^ -5; 10 ^ -4], ..., (10 ^ -1; 10 ^1], (10^1; 10^2]...(10^7; positive infinity]

or

(0; 0.000001], (0.000001; 0.000010], (0.000010; 0.000100], ..., (0.100000; 1.0]; (1.0; 10.0]...(1000000; positive infinity]

For each interval, a count is made of the queries with execution times that fell into that interval.

You can select the range of the intervals by changing the range base. For example, for base range=2 we have the following intervals:

(0; 2 ^ -19], (2 ^ -19; 2 ^ -18], (2 ^ -18; 2 ^ -17], ..., (2 ^ -1; 2 ^1], (2 ^ 1; 2 ^ 2]...(2 ^ 25; positive infinity]

or

(0; 0.000001], (0.000001, 0.000003], ..., (0.25; 0.5], (0.5; 2], (2; 4]...(8388608; positive infinity]

Small numbers look strange (i.e., don’t look like powers of 2), because we lose precision on division when the ranges are calculated at runtime. In the resulting table, you look at the high boundary of the range.

For example, you may see:

+----------------+-------+------------+
|      time      | count |    total   |
+----------------+-------+------------|
|       0.000001 |     0 |   0.000000 |
|       0.000010 |    17 |   0.000094 |
|       0.000100 |  4301 |   0.236555 |
|       0.001000 |  1499 |   0.824450 |
|       0.010000 | 14851 |  81.680502 |
|       0.100000 |  8066 | 443.635693 |
|       1.000000 |     0 |   0.000000 |
|      10.000000 |     0 |   0.000000 |
|     100.000000 |     1 |  55.937094 |
|    1000.000000 |     0 |   0.000000 |
|   10000.000000 |     0 |   0.000000 |
|  100000.000000 |     0 |   0.000000 |
| 1000000.000000 |     0 |   0.000000 |
| TOO LONG QUERY |     0 |   0.000000 |
+----------------+-------+------------+

This means there were:

* 17 queries with 0.000001 < query execution time < = 0.000010 seconds; total execution time of the 17 queries = 0.000094 seconds

* 4301 queries with 0.000010 < query execution time < = 0.000100 seconds; total execution time of the 4301 queries = 0.236555 seconds

* 1499 queries with 0.000100 < query execution time < = 0.001000 seconds; total execution time of the 1499 queries = 0.824450 seconds

* 14851 queries with 0.001000 < query execution time < = 0.010000 seconds; total execution time of the 14851 queries = 81.680502 seconds

* 8066 queries with 0.010000 < query execution time < = 0.100000 seconds; total execution time of the 8066 queries = 443.635693 seconds

* 1 query with 10.000000 < query execution time < = 100.0000 seconds; total execution time of the 1 query = 55.937094 seconds

Logging the queries in separate READ and WRITE tables

Percona Server for MySQL is now able to log the queries response times into separate READ and WRITE INFORMATION_SCHEMA tables. The two new tables are named INFORMATION_SCHEMA.QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME_READ and INFORMATION_SCHEMA.QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME_WRITE respectively. The decision on whether a query is a read or a write is based on the type of the command. Thus, for example, an UPDATE ... WHERE <condition> is always logged as a write query even if <condition> is always false and thus no actual writes happen during its execution.

Following SQL commands will be considered as WRITE queries and will be logged into the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME_WRITE table: CREATE_TABLE, CREATE_INDEX, ALTER_TABLE, TRUNCATE, DROP_TABLE, LOAD, CREATE_DB, DROP_DB, ALTER_DB, RENAME_TABLE, DROP_INDEX, CREATE_VIEW, DROP_VIEW, CREATE_TRIGGER, DROP_TRIGGER, CREATE_EVENT, ALTER_EVENT, DROP_EVENT, UPDATE, UPDATE_MULTI, INSERT, INSERT_SELECT, DELETE, DELETE_MULTI, REPLACE, REPLACE_SELECT, CREATE_USER, RENAME_USER, DROP_USER, ALTER_USER, GRANT, REVOKE, REVOKE_ALL, OPTIMIZE, CREATE_FUNCTION, CREATE_PROCEDURE, CREATE_SPFUNCTION, DROP_PROCEDURE, DROP_FUNCTION, ALTER_PROCEDURE, ALTER_FUNCTION, INSTALL_PLUGIN, and UNINSTALL_PLUGIN. Commands not listed here are considered as READ queries and will be logged into the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME_READ table.

Installing the plugins

In order to enable this feature you’ll need to install the necessary plugins:

mysql> INSTALL PLUGIN QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME_AUDIT SONAME 'query_response_time.so';

This plugin is used for gathering statistics.

mysql> INSTALL PLUGIN QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME SONAME 'query_response_time.so';

This plugin provides the interface (INFORMATION_SCHEMA.QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME) to output gathered statistics.

mysql> INSTALL PLUGIN QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME_READ SONAME 'query_response_time.so';

This plugin provides the interface (INFORMATION_SCHEMA.QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME_READ) to output gathered statistics.

mysql> INSTALL PLUGIN QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME_WRITE SONAME 'query_response_time.so';

This plugin provides the interface (INFORMATION_SCHEMA.QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME_WRITE) to output gathered statistics.

You can check if plugins are installed correctly by running:

mysql> SHOW PLUGINS;

The output could be similar to the following:

...
| QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME         | ACTIVE   | INFORMATION SCHEMA | query_response_time.so | GPL     |
| QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME_AUDIT   | ACTIVE   | AUDIT              | query_response_time.so | GPL     |
| QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME_READ    | ACTIVE   | INFORMATION SCHEMA | query_response_time.so | GPL     |
| QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME_WRITE   | ACTIVE   | INFORMATION SCHEMA | query_response_time.so | GPL     |
+-----------------------------+----------+--------------------+------------------------+---------+

Usage

To start collecting query time metrics, query_response_time_stats should be enabled:

SET GLOBAL query_response_time_stats = on;

And to make it persistent, add the same to my.cnf:

[mysqld]
query_response_time_stats = on

SELECT

You can get the distribution using the query:

mysql> SELECT * from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME;

The output could be similar to the following:

time                   count   total
0.000001               0       0.000000
0.000010               0       0.000000
0.000100               1       0.000072
0.001000               0       0.000000
0.010000               0       0.000000
0.100000               0       0.000000
1.000000               0       0.000000
10.000000              8       47.268416
100.000000             0       0.000000
1000.000000            0       0.000000
10000.000000           0       0.000000
100000.000000          0       0.000000
1000000.000000         0       0.000000
TOO LONG QUERY         0       0.000000

You can write a complex query like:

SELECT c.count, c.time,
(SELECT SUM(a.count) FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME as a WHERE a.count != 0) as query_count,
(SELECT COUNT(*)     FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME as b WHERE b.count != 0) as not_zero_region_count,
(SELECT COUNT(*)     FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME) as region_count
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME as c WHERE c.count > 0;

Note

If query_response_time_stats is ON, the execution times for these two SELECT queries will also be collected.

FLUSH

Flushing can be done by setting the query_response_time_flush to ON (or 1):

mysql> SET GLOBAL query_response_time_flush='ON';

FLUSH does two things:

  • Clears the collected times from the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME, INFORMATION_SCHEMA.QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME_READ, and INFORMATION_SCHEMA.QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME_WRITE tables

  • Reads the value of query_response_time_range_base and uses it to set the range base for the table

Note

The execution time for the FLUSH query will also be collected.

Stored procedures

Stored procedure calls count as a single query.

Collect time point

Time is collected after query execution completes (before clearing data structures).

Version Specific Information

  • Percona Server for MySQL 5.7.10-1: Feature ported from Percona Server for MySQL 5.6

System Variables

query_response_time_flush

Option Description
Command-line Yes
Config file No
Scope Global
Dynamic No
Data type Boolean
Default OFF
Range OFF/ON

Setting this variable to ON will flush the statistics and re-read the query_response_time_range_base.

query_response_time_range_base

Option Description
Command-line Yes
Config file Yes
Scope Global
Dynamic Yes
Data type Numeric
Default 10
Range 2-1000

Sets up the logarithm base for the scale.

Note

The variable takes effect only after this command has been executed:

mysql> SET GLOBAL query_response_time_flush=1;

query_response_time_stats

Option Description
Command-line Yes
Config file Yes
Scope Global
Dynamic Yes
Data type Boolean
Default OFF
Range ON/OFF

This global variable enables and disables collection of query times.

query_response_time_session_stats

Option Description
Command-line No
Config file No
Scope Session
Dynamic Yes
Data type Text
Default GLOBAL
Range ON/OFF/GLOBAL

This variable enables and disables collection of query times on session level, thus customizing QRT behavior for individual connections. By default, its value is GLOBAL, which means that its value is taken from the query_response_time_stats variable.

INFORMATION_SCHEMA Tables

INFORMATION_SCHEMA.QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME

Column Name Description
‘VARCHAR TIME’ ‘Interval range in which the query occurred’
‘INT(11) COUNT’ ‘Number of queries with execution times that fell into that interval’
‘VARCHAR TOTAL’ ‘Total execution time of the queries ‘

INFORMATION_SCHEMA.QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME_READ

Column Name Description
‘VARCHAR TIME’ ‘Interval range in which the query occurred’
‘INT(11) COUNT’ ‘Number of queries with execution times that fell into that interval’
‘VARCHAR TOTAL’ ‘Total execution time of the queries ‘

INFORMATION_SCHEMA.QUERY_RESPONSE_TIME_WRITE

Column Name Description
‘VARCHAR TIME’ ‘Interval range in which the query occurred’
‘INT(11) COUNT’ ‘Number of queries with execution times that fell into that interval’
‘VARCHAR TOTAL’ ‘Total execution time of the queries ‘

Last update: 2022-09-27