Measuring Performance with performance_schema •You can also try benchmarking packages such as SysBench and DBT2, available at https:// launchpad.net/sysbench, and http://osdldbt.sourceforge.net/#dbt2. •The  mysqlslap  program can be helpful for simulating a high load produced by multiple clients issuing queries simultaneously. See Section 4.5.8, “mysqlslap — A Load Emulation Client” . These programs or packages can bring a system to its knees, so be sure to use them only on your development systems. You can query the tables in the  performance_schema  database to see real-time information about the performance characteristics of your server and the applications it is running. See Chapter 27,  MySQL Performance Schema  for details. To ascertain what your MySQL server is doing, it can be helpful to examine the process list, which indicates the operations currently being performed by the set of threads executing within the server. For example: Threads can be killed with the  KILL  statement. See Section 13.7.8.4, “KILL Statement” . The following discussion enumerates the sources of process information, the privileges required to see process information, and describes the content of process list entries. Process information is available from these sources: 1843 •The  SHOW PROCESSLIST  statement: Section 13.7.7.29, “SHOW PROCESSLIST Statement” •Content of Process List Entries •Privileges Required to Access the Process List •Sources of Process Information 8.13.3 Measuring Performance with performance_schema 8.14 Examining Server Thread (Process) Information 8.14.1 Accessing the Process List Sources of Process Information mysql>  SHOW PROCESSLIST\G *************************** 1. row *************************** Id: 5 User: event_scheduler Host: localhost db: NULL Command: Daemon Time: 2756681 State: Waiting on empty queue Info: NULL *************************** 2. row *************************** Id: 20 User: me Host: localhost:52943 db: test Command: Query Time: 0 State: starting Info: SHOW PROCESSLIST