Progress Unused Indexes Test

While at one end indexes greatly enhance database performance, at the other they also add significant overhead to table change operations. Useless/unused indices can therefore be unnecessary resource hogs. Such indexes are typically not used by any regular query and may not enforce a constraint. However, these unneeded indexes cost you in several ways: they slow updates, inserts and deletes; they may keep HOT from updating the row in-place, they add to query planning time; they take time to backup and restore. Administrators hence need to identify such indexes and eliminate them. The Progress Unused Indexes test helps administrators achieve the same!

This test reports the number and names of unused/useless indexes, and thus prompts administrators to remove them so as to save the server from unnecessary performance degradations.

Target of the test : A Progress Database server

Agent deploying the test: An internal/external agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the target database server being monitored

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter Description

Test Period

How often should the test be executed

Host

The IP address of the Progress database server.

Port

The port number on which the database server is listening. By default, this is NULL.

Database Name

Specify the name of the Progress database instance that is to be monitored.

Username

In order to monitor a Progress database instance, a special database user account has to be created in every Progress database instance that requires monitoring. This special user needs to be granted a set of privileges. To know how to create the database user and grant the required privileges, refer to Pre-Requisites for monitoring the Progress database. Specify the name of such a user in this text box.

Password

The password of the specified Username.

Confirm Password

Confirm the password by retyping it here.

Detailed Diagnosis

To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option.

The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled:

  • The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability
  • Both the normal and abnormal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.
Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Unused indexes

Indicates the number of indexes that are currently unused/useless on the server.

Number

A high value of this measure is a cause for concern.

Use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to know which indexes in a database are unused. The detailed diagnosis also reveals how often each such index has been updated, so that you can assess the unnecessary overheads that the database may have incurred in the process.