Amazon Aurora (MySQL) Speeds Join Queries by More than 10x with Asynchronous Key Prefetch

Posted on: Oct 26, 2017

Amazon Aurora (MySQL) now supports the asynchronous key prefetch (AKP) feature which can speed up join queries by more than an order of magnitude.

This feature applies to queries that require use of the Batched Key Access (BKA) join algorithm and Multi-Range Read (MRR) optimization, and improves performance when the underlying data set is not in the main memory buffer pool or query cache. In our internal testing, AKP improved the latency for some queries meeting the above criteria, when using a cold buffer pool, by a factor of more than 10x.

The feature is available starting Amazon Aurora version 1.15. You can read more in the best practices section of the Amazon Aurora documentation. To learn more about Amazon Aurora, a MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database that combines the speed and availability of high-end commercial databases with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of open source databases, visit the Amazon Aurora product page.