What should the DBA monitor to assess the impact of deadlocks on application performance?

What should the DBA monitor to assess the impact of deadlocks on application performance?

• A. Central processing unit (CPU) usage
• B. Network latency
• C. Database queries
• D. User activity logs

Answer: (A)

Monitoring central processing unit (CPU) usage is crucial for a Database Administrator (DBA) when assessing the impact of deadlocks on application performance. Deadlocks occur when two or more processes are waiting for each other to release resources, which can cause significant delays in query processing.

When deadlocks happen, they can lead to increased CPU usage because the database engine may spend more resources trying to resolve these conflicts. This can result in application slowdowns, and observing CPU usage can provide insights into whether deadlocks are causing performance issues. A noticeable spike in CPU utilization may indicate that processes are being forced to wait longer than necessary, therefore implicating deadlocks.

While network latency, database queries, and user activity logs can provide useful information about the database environment, they do not directly indicate the resource contention caused by deadlocks in the same way that CPU monitoring does. Network latency measures the time it takes for data to be sent and received over the network, which may contribute to performance issues but isn't specific to deadlocks. Analyzing database queries could help identify problematic SQL statements, but it would not provide direct insights into whether deadlocks are affecting performance. Similarly, user activity logs can show who is accessing the system and their actions, but they do not