You're facing high traffic on your database. How do you decide which maintenance tasks to prioritize?

When you haven't anticipated however faced with high-traffic on your database, it is not advisable to run any of the maintenance tasks during that time. In fact, if the backups or index maintenance or for that matter any DB maintenance tasks executing , it is better to stop them and let the resources available to cater to high traffic. In that time, you can monitor for the blocking on your server, network throughput and disk IO. Also you need to ensure the disk do not run out of space and log drive do not get full. At that time, ensuring the transactions to complete without any issues have utmost importance rather deciding upon which maintenance task to prioritize.

Regular, reliable backups are essential to recover from failures without data loss. Regularly test backup and recovery procedures to ensure data can be restored quickly and accurately. For databases like PostgreSQL, regular vacuuming and reindexing can help maintain performance by reclaiming storage and updating statistics. Remove obsolete data, such as old logs or temporary files, to free up space and improve performance. Apply security patches to protect the database from vulnerabilities, especially under high traffic where attacks might be more frequent.

To make informed maintenance decisions, start by analyzing the load on your database. Identify frequently executed queries or those that take a long time to complete. Use database monitoring tools to pinpoint bottlenecks, such as high CPU usage or memory pressure. Understanding the nature of the load will help you determine whether to focus on query optimization, indexing, or scaling resources. This analysis is crucial for maintaining efficient database performance and ensuring that resources are allocated effectively to meet operational demands.

Los índices son fundamentales, y conforme la base de datos crece, hay que ir creando nuevos índices que ayudarán. Una buena practica a la hora de crear un índice, es crearlo y al mes revisar su uso para ver si se está utilizando, si no, borrarlo. Cuando se vaya a consolidar los índices de una tabla, es recomendable deshabilitarlos cuando no tengan uso en vez de borrarlos, porque algunas aplicaciones hacen revisión de schema, y dejarán de funcionar. Al igual que hay que hacer revisiones mensuales en busca de nuevos índices, hay que revisar también su uso y si es bajo o inexistente borrarlo/deshabilitarlo. Y por supuesto, diariamente hacer reindexación de índices fragmentados y actualización de estadísticas.

In this Capacity Planning is key factor here ensure transaction logs/archive log not go full. Monitor DB servers, if required scale up CPUs or robust plan add new nodes during high periods to prevent high load bottlenecks.