Query performance is influenced by a number of factors, including hardware efficiency (e.g., how fast the Server machines are), the system's workload at the time you run the query (e.g., how many users are logged in and making requests), and the efficiency of the database (e.g., how well the database is being maintained). As you can see, many of the factors that influence query performance are beyond your control. For example, you cannot control how many other users are currently using the system.
Query performance is also affected by a number of factors that you can control, including how you construct the query and the options that you choose for running it. The following Details sections discuss things that you can do to maximize the performance of queries.
Note: The suggestions provided here may not improve the performance of all queries. In addition, other factors (e.g., deficiencies in hardware resources) may negate any improvement that would otherwise be achieved by implementing these suggestions.
Generally, the more data that you attempt to retrieve with a query, the longer the query will take to run. For example, a query that retrieves data for all fields in the Recommendation family (which has many subfamilies) will take longer to run than a query that returns only a few fields from the GE Digital General Recommendation family (A subfamily of the Recommendation family).
Knowing this, you can improve query performance by limiting the amount of data that you return in the query results. For example:
Always query on the lowest-level family possible. For example, instead of querying on a family, query on individual subfamilies. If you need to query on more than one subfamily, you might want to create more than one query.
Only include in your query results the fields that you actually need. Instead of returning the information for all fields in a given family, limit your results to only the specific fields that you want to analyze.
Use criteria to limit results to a specific set of records. For example, if you are interested only in the pumps associated with a given manufacturer, limit your query results by applying criteria to the Manufacturer field.
Note: Performance improvement from limiting the size of the query will be seen only when comparing queries that are otherwise similar.
GE Digital APM provides two output modes for running Select queries: formatted mode and unformatted mode.
Because unformatted mode returns results without taking the extra step of applying formatting before displaying results, running a query in unformatted mode can be more efficient than running the same query in formatted mode. This performance improvement is particularly significant when you run a query that includes many formatted fields.
Note: Unformatted mode is the default output format for new Select queries.
