How Composite Indexes and Query Rewrites Can Cut SQL Latency by Over 1,000%
As databases scale to millions of records, poorly optimized SQL queries become a major performance bottleneck, straining CPU resources and degrading user experience. Common pitfalls include using SELECT * in production, which increases I/O overhead and prevents covering indexes from functioning efficiently. Tools like EXPLAIN in MySQL and PostgreSQL help developers inspect query execution plans and identify full table scans or missing indexes before making changes. Composite indexes can dramatically speed up multi-condition queries, but column order matters — high-selectivity columns should be placed first to maximize index usage. Wrapping indexed columns in functions within WHERE clauses also invalidates index lookups, and rewriting such queries as explicit range comparisons restores fast index scans.
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