Optimizing the RAM Utilization by the MySQL on the Cloud

Over the last 6 months, it has been all about speed at SiteGround. We have boosted the performance of the websites hosted with SiteGround up to 5 times by launching the new Ultrafast PHP and MySQL setups and enabling the dynamic cache (full page caching) for all sites. As a next major step in this process, we have turned our attention to our cloud servers and are glad to announce that we rolled out a new dynamic RAM-allocation algorithm that further improves the resource utilization of the MySQL and makes the database-intensive websites hosted on our higher cloud plans run faster. 

What is the problem with MySQL?

MySQL could be a real troublemaker. When left untamed, it devours resources and keeps asking for more. If it doesn’t get what it wants, it starts slowing processes one after the other and turns into a bottleneck for database-driven apps like WordPress. So the MySQL settings are the key to resolving many of the site slow issues reported, but many webmasters have difficulties tracing the origins of the slow performance. It is not just a question of adding more RAM. This RAM should be smartly utilized in a way that allows MySQL to run as fast as possible, but still to be restrained from eating up all the available resources.  

We have been helping clients with evaluating what is an optimal allocation of RAM to the MySQL given the specific services running on the website and the available specs and manually resolving those case by case, but, now we have come up with a way to automate that and diminish the amount of work and expertise required by our clients in the process.

What have we done?

We have implemented a dynamic configuration that depends on the amount of memory your Cloud account has. This means that MySQL settings will be adjusted depending on the available resources. We will not only start new Cloud instances with predefined configurations, but in case of an Automatic Scale event (or upgrade), the server config will adjust itself for optimal resource utilization without manual intervention.  That means that database queries will be processed faster and the I/O usage will be lower. Last, but not least, the additional RAM you add will now be utilized more efficiently, and even fast-growing sites will have to add less of it less often and thus save on their hosting expenses.  

Who Gets It?

The new system is already deployed on all Cloud servers! You don’t need to enable it or otherwise configure it. Just watch out for performance improvements and do let us know your feedback. The more database-intensive your site is (such are, for example, membership sites, online stores, forums, etc.), the bigger the improvement from the change will be!