Software architecture decisions need to be reviewed from time to time. As your customer base increases and as the data you handle grows, it’s a good idea to look at how individual pages read data.

Does the reporting page still work as good when the data it is trying to read grows from 1000 rows from 100000 rows?

here are a few fixes that I have looked into before when pages fail to load due to an increase in data the page is trying to process:

  • if you are reading from a Relational Database, have you added indexes to the columns used as part of the JOIN?
  • is the database configuration optimised? A few times my.cnf file has improved the database performance for MySQL and ensured that it is using adequate memory available for its usage on the server.
  • can you throw more hardware at the problem? Usually, a quick fix, while you continue to make improvements under the hood.
  • can you avoid using multiple JOINS on the page? JOIN usually are the cause of slow queries bring the page to a halt.

Code refactoring should be a monthly exercise. Regular improvements to the code base are essential to ensure that your code stays clean as your system grows with new features and more data.