Author: limeinan
The MySQL plug-in storage engine is a component in the MySQL database server that is responsible for performing actual data I/O operations for the database, and can allow and enforce specific feature sets for special application needs. One of the main advantages of using a special storage engine is that only the features required for a particular application are provided, so there is less system overhead in the database and the end result is more efficient and higher database performance. This is one of the reasons MySQL is consistently viewed as high-performance, matching or beating proprietary monolithic databases on industry-standard benchmarks.
From a technical perspective, what are some of the unique components in the storage engine that support the underlying structure? Some key differences include:
· Concurrency: Some applications have more granular-level locking requirements (such as row-level locking) than others. Choosing the right locking strategy can reduce overhead and help improve overall performance. It also includes support for capabilities such as multi-version concurrency control or "snapshot" reads.
·Transaction support: Not all applications require transactions, but for applications that do require transactions, there are well-defined requirements, such as ACID compatibility.
·Referential integrity: Through foreign keys defined in DDDL, the server needs to enforce referential integrity of the associated database.
· Physical storage: This includes a variety of things, from the total page size of tables and indexes, to the format required to store the data, to the physical disk.
·Index support: Different applications tend to adopt different indexing strategies. Each storage engine usually has its own indexing method, but some indexing methods (such as B-tree indexes) are common to almost all storage engines. of.
Memory caching: Different applications respond better to certain memory caching strategies than others, so while some memory caching is common to all storage engines (e.g. for users Connection's cache, MySQL's high-speed query cache, etc.), other caching strategies are only defined uniquely when using a special storage engine.
·Performance assistance: including multiple I/O threads for parallel operations, thread concurrency, database checkpoints, batched insert processing, etc.
·Other target features: may include support for geospatial operations, security restrictions on specific data processing operations, etc.
Each set of plug-in storage engine basic components is designed accordingly to provide a selectable set of features for specific applications. On the flip side, avoiding component attribute collections helps avoid unnecessary overhead. Therefore, it is obvious that one should understand the requirement set of a specific application and select the appropriate MySQL storage engine that can greatly improve the overall efficiency and performance of the system.