In this blog post, I want to go over some of the day-to-day MySQL tools and methods DBAs use to analyze queries and visualize “what is going on?” I won’t be going into the nitty-gritty details of each of these tools, I just want to introduce you to them and show you what they look like so you will know what types of information they provide.

This isn’t a comprehensive list by any means but consider it a primer for those starting with MySQL and wanting to know what a query is going to do or is doing.

The two sides of query analysis are examining a query BEFORE you run it, and then analyzing what actually happened AFTER you run it.

Let’s start with the tools you can use to predict a query’s future.

In the beginning, there was EXPLAIN. The venerable EXPLAIN command has been with us a long time as a built-in MySQL utility statement. Its purpose is to explain that what the optimizer …