Learn how to optimize queries and indexes, and potentially speed up your application many times over.The database is just too slow. Queries are queuing up, backlogs growing, users being refused connection. Management is ready to spend millions on "upgrading" to some other system, when the problem is really that MySQL is simply not being used properly. Badly defined or non-existent indexes are one of the primary reasons for poor performance, and fixing these can often lead to phenomenal improvements.