Title: Database normalization to speed up multisite
Last modified: August 22, 2016

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# Database normalization to speed up multisite

 *  [highschool2005](https://wordpress.org/support/users/highschool2005/)
 * (@highschool2005)
 * [11 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-normalization-to-speed-up-multisite/)
 * Hi everyone,
 * I have an issue with my website. I have a WordPress multisite network installed.
   I have over 200 blogs created. My website has issues with the MySQL database.
   It often reaches the max connexion limit. The database crashes and thus charged
   the server.
 * My developer thinks that normalizing the MySQL database and setting 1 database
   user per blog will solve the issue. I only found a couple of topics regarding
   normalization and I wasn’t convinced this would make things better.
 * What do you think?
    What is your experience with this?
 * Thank you

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

 *  [jkhongusc](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jkhongusc/)
 * (@jkhongusc)
 * [11 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-normalization-to-speed-up-multisite/#post-5879815)
 * IMO, shouldnt be needed. What is your max connections set to? Why is WP making
   so many connections to mysql? Does your site get that much traffic or possibly
   a plugin gone wild?
 * We have a fairly large WP multisite installation. We have multiple WP servers
   with a big mysql database. We serve about 1 million page hits per day. Our server
   has max_connections at 500, but right now I queried the database and only see
   10 connections being used.
 *  Thread Starter [highschool2005](https://wordpress.org/support/users/highschool2005/)
 * (@highschool2005)
 * [11 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-normalization-to-speed-up-multisite/#post-5880033)
 * I definitely don’t get that much trafic. I only have about 400 pages viewed per
   day.
    Our max connexion is set by default to 50.
 * So it is more related to an issue with the PHP code you think?
 * We have an affiliate programme so everytime someone uses the affiliate link, 
   wordpress has to look for who the sponsor is but I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t
   cause any issue.
 * I’ve finally been able to increase my RAM to 4GB, edit WHM and wp-config to take
   this into account. We have less issues.
 * But still… I was just going to log into phpmyadmin and it won’t load for some
   weird reason. I get the 504 error : gateway timed out.
 * This is so weird…
 *  Thread Starter [highschool2005](https://wordpress.org/support/users/highschool2005/)
 * (@highschool2005)
 * [11 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-normalization-to-speed-up-multisite/#post-5880034)
 * How about having 1 database user per blog? Have you ever heard of this fix?
    
   My developer says it’s a common issue with WordPress Multisite when there are
   many blogs.
 *  [jkhongusc](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jkhongusc/)
 * (@jkhongusc)
 * [11 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-normalization-to-speed-up-multisite/#post-5880036)
 * The 504 error from phpmyadmin tells me that you have a configuration problem 
   that has nothing to do with WP. My guess is either a problem with the database
   configuration or (more likely) a configuration with your web server.
 * I use this script to print out web server information. Create a file and put 
   somewhere on the webserver then call it from your browser:
 *     ```
       <?php
       echo phpinfo();
       ?>
       ```
   
 * My guess is that your php memory_limit is too low. There are plugins that check
   for some of the php config, but I do not remember them off hand right now.
 *  [jkhongusc](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jkhongusc/)
 * (@jkhongusc)
 * [11 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-normalization-to-speed-up-multisite/#post-5880037)
 * This is the plugin I use to do database debugging, Query Monitor: [https://wordpress.org/plugins/query-monitor/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/query-monitor/)
 * If you turn it on it will display a lot of information. Some of the information
   contains memory usage… that will tell you if your php memory_limit setting is
   too low or not.
 *  [webaware](https://wordpress.org/support/users/webaware/)
 * (@webaware)
 * [11 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-normalization-to-speed-up-multisite/#post-5880066)
 * Have you looked at your website logs to see if you’re getting much traffic, outside
   of what you see in your analytics account? e.g. spammer and hacker bots can frequently
   hit WordPress scripts like wp-login.php, wp-comments-post.php, wp-signup.php,
   xmlrpc.php and that can drive up both MySQL connections and memory use.
 * If you do find that it’s bots, here’s some possible mitigation:
    - install a [login](https://wordpress.org/plugins/limit-login-attempts/) [limit](https://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-login-lockdown/)
      [plugin](https://wordpress.org/plugins/login-lockdown/) (you should anyway!)
    - block access to xmlrpc.php unless you need it, e.g. for the Android / iPhone
      apps
    - [replace WordPress comments](http://snippets.webaware.com.au/administrivia/moved-comments-disqus/)
      with a 3rd party off-site service, e.g. Disqus, LiveFyre
    - block wp-signup.php if you’re managing logins some other way, e.g. e-commerce
      shop signups, [Gravity Forms](http://webaware.com.au/get-gravity-forms) User
      Registration
 * By block, I mean disallow access to those scripts from NginX .conf or Apache .
   htaccess.
 * As to reworking the WordPress data model, don’t. Just make sure you have an object
   cache — memcached, APC, redis, etc. Absolutely essential for any non-trivial 
   WordPress website.
 *  Moderator [Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ipstenu/)
 * (@ipstenu)
 * 🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist
 * [11 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-normalization-to-speed-up-multisite/#post-5880098)
 * Not even Multisite needs a php memory over 128M. If that’s the case, you have
   insane plugins.
 * > My website has issues with the MySQL database. It often reaches the max connexion
   > limit. The database crashes and thus charged the server.
 * What’s the max connection for MySQL? Is it really 50? Becuase if so, yeaaaah 
   that’d die on Multisite.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

The topic ‘Database normalization to speed up multisite’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [database](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/database/)
 * [multisite](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/multisite/)
 * [server](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/server/)

 * In: [Networking WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/multisite/)
 * 7 replies
 * 4 participants
 * Last reply from: [Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ipstenu/)
 * Last activity: [11 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-normalization-to-speed-up-multisite/#post-5880098)
 * Status: not resolved

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