Diagnose Amazon Aurora MySQL performance using CloudWatch Database Insights
Database Blog
This article explains how to use Amazon CloudWatch Database Insights to diagnose Aurora MySQL and RDS for MySQL performance issues by analyzing wait events and database load.
- Database Insights measures activity as average active sessions (AAS) and plots DB load against instance CPU capacity
- Compare DB load to Max vCPU line to determine if database is saturated or constrained on specific resources
- Slice DB load by wait event categories to identify bottlenecks: CPU, I/O, locks, or connection churn
- Pivot from dominant wait events to top SQL statements to find root causes and actionable remedies
- Common MySQL waits include CPU, io/table/sql/handler, SYNCH events, and locking waits with specific tuning actions
- Fleet Health Dashboard ranks multiple database instances by load utilization for efficient triage across many databases
Using wait events instead of CPU graphs alone helps identify actual bottlenecks and apply targeted fixes rather than scaling instances unnecessarily.
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