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Why don’t databases automatically index tables based on query frequency? Do any tools exist to analyze a database and the queries it is receiving, and automatically create, or at least suggest which indexes to create?
I’m specifically interested in MySQL, but I’d be curious for other databases as well.
There are database optimizers that can be enabled or attached to databases to suggest (and in some cases perform) indexes that might help things out.
However, it’s not actually a trivial problem, and when these aids first came out users sometimes found it actually slowed their databases down due to inferior optimizations.
Lastly, there’s a LOT of money in the industry for database architects, and they prefer the status quo.
Still, databases are becoming more intelligent. If you use SQL server profiler with Microsoft SQL server you’ll find ways to speed your server up. Other databases have similar profilers, and there are third party utilities to do this work.
But if you’re the one writing the queries, hopefully you know enough about what you’re doing to index the right fields. If not then having the right indexes is likely the least of your problems…
-Adam