/plushcap/analysis/planetscale/planetscale-btrees-and-database-indexes

B-trees and database indexes

What's this blog post about?

This article discusses B-trees and their use in database management systems (DBMSs). It explains how B-trees work, why databases use them for indexes, and the impact of primary key choice on index performance. The article also introduces a variant of B-trees called B+trees, which are commonly used in MySQL indexes. It highlights the benefits of using sequential keys as opposed to random or UUID keys for better query performance. Additionally, it touches upon the buffer pool feature in InnoDB that helps improve query performance by caching frequently accessed pages in memory.

Company
PlanetScale

Date published
Sept. 9, 2024

Author(s)
Benjamin Dicken

Word count
3031

Language
English

Hacker News points
351


By Matt Makai. 2021-2024.