There are times where you need to know exactly how much memory the mysqld server (or any other program) is using, where (i.e. for what function) it was allocated, how it got there (a backtrace, please!), and at what point in time the allocation happened.

For example; you may have noticed a sharp memory increase after executing a particular query. Or, maybe mysqld is seemingly using too much memory overall. Or again, maybe you noticed mysqld’s memory profile slowly growing overtime, indicating a possible memory bug.

Whatever the reason, there is a simple but powerful way to profile MySQL memory usage; the Massif tool from Valgrind. An excerpt from the Massif manual page (Heap memory being simply the allotted pool of memory for use by

With Performance Schema improvements in MySQL 5.6 I think we’re in the good shape with insight on what is causing performance bottlenecks as well as where CPU resources are spent. (Performance Schema does not accounts CPU usage directly but it is something which can be relatively easily derived from wait and stage information). Where we’re still walking blind with MySQL is resource usage – specifically Memory Usage.

I can’t count how many time I had to scratch my head with system configured to consume only few GBs in global buffers growing to consume much more for some unknown needs leaving me puzzled whenever it is user variables, complex stored procedures temporary tables or something else. Not only such connection related allocations are invisible but many global allocations are poorly visible too. Sure, we know how