Data is everywhere in the form of values, text, numbers, pictures and so on that can be stored and used anytime when required. The importance of data and data storage systems has gained recognition since businesses find the potential of big data and its use cases. The data was with us always, but the possibilities to use it effectively were an arduous task.

In today’s post, we’ll dive into how we, at AppSignal, solved a daunting engineering challenge. Giving you a look into the kitchen, this post will show you how we tested a new database in production without having to worry about errors/downtime. Alright, let’s get cooking!

When DevOps teams talk about monitoring a database, the primary motivation is to ensure that the database won’t suffer a performance hiccup. Long queries, timeouts and table scans are among the most popular causes behind lousy customer experience. However, in recent years, more data has been shifted to cloud databases.