Query Targeting¶

Description¶

Query Targeting alerts indicate inefficient queries:

Query Targeting: Scanned Objects / Returned occurs if the number of documents examined to fulfill a query relative to the actual number of returned documents meets or exceeds a user-defined threshold. The default is 1000, which means that a query must scan more than 1000 documents for each document returned to trigger the alert.
Query Targeting: Scanned / Returned occurs if the number of index keys examined to fulfill a query relative to the actual number of returned documents meets or exceeds a user-defined threshold. This alert is not enabled by default.

Ideally, the ratio of scanned documents to returned documents should be close to 1. A high ratio negatively impacts query performance.

Example

The following mongod log entry shows statistics generated from an inefficient query:

<Timestamp> COMMAND  <query>
planSummary: COLLSCAN keysExamined:0
docsExamined: 10000 cursorExhausted:1 numYields:234
nreturned:4  protocol:op_query 358ms

This query scanned 10,000 documents and returned only 4 for a ratio of 2500, which is highly inefficient. No index keys were examined, so MongoDB scanned all documents in the collection, known as a collection scan.

Visualize Query Targeting¶

Atlas provides two methods to visualize query targeting:

Query Targeting metrics, which highlight high ratios of objects scanned to objects returned.
The Query Profiler, which describes specific inefficient queries executed on the cluster.

Query Targeting Metrics¶

You can view historical metrics to help you visualize the query performance of your cluster. To view Query Targeting metrics in the Atlas UI:

Click Metrics on the Clusters dashboard.
On the Metrics page, click the Add Chart dropdown menu and select Query Targeting.

The Query Targeting chart displays the following metrics for queries executed on the server:

Metric	Description
Scanned Objects / Returned	Indicates the number of documents examined relative to the number of returned documents.
Scanned / Returned	Indicates the number of index keys examined to fulfill a query relative to the actual number of returned documents.

If either of these metrics exceed the user-defined threshold, Atlas generates the corresponding Query Targeting: Scanned Objects / Returned or Query Targeting: Scanned / Returned alert.

Note

You can also view Query Targeting ratios of operations in real-time using the Real-Time Performance Panel.

Query Profiler¶

The Query Profiler contains several metrics you can use to pinpoint specific inefficient queries. You can visualize up to the past 24 hours of query operations. The Query Profiler can show the Examined : Returned Ratio of your queries, allowing you to see specific queries that result in a Query Targeting alert.

To access the Query Profiler:

Click Metrics on the Clusters dashboard.
Click the Profiler tab.

Solution¶

The query targeting alert typically occurs when there is no index to support a query or queries or when an existing index only partially supports a query or queries. Add one or more indexes to better serve the inefficient queries.

The Performance Advisor provides the easiest and quickest way to create an index. The Performance Advisor monitors queries that MongoDB considers slow and recommends indexes to improve performance. Atlas dynamically adjusts your slow query threshold based on the execution time of operations across your cluster.

Click Create Index on a slow query for instructions on how to create the recommended index.

Note

It is possible to receive a Query Targeting alert for an inefficient query without receiving index suggestions from the Performance Advisor if the query exceeds the slow query threshold and the ratio of scanned to returned documents is greater than the threshold specified in the alert.

In addition, you can use the following resources to determine which query generated the alert:

The Real-Time Performance Panel monitors and displays current network traffic and database operations on machines hosting MongoDB in your Atlas clusters.
The MongoDB logs maintain an account of activity, including queries, for each mongod instance in your Atlas clusters.
The cursor.explain() command for the mongo shell provides performance details for all queries.
The Data Profiler records operations that Atlas considers slow when compared to average execution time for all operations on your cluster.
Note
Enabling the Database Profiler incurs a performance overhead.

Refer to the following for more information on query performance:

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