Slow but steady rise of MYSQL cpu load

Question

I'm running a website on a cloud server. The website is functioning completely around a (rather large) database. Over the last two weeks I've noticed steady rise in the CPU load of the MYSQL and I'm not sure why. It has been 15-16% for a while and then it started climbing by 1-2% a day. Currently we are at 27% and thought there has been a rise in traffic, it wasn't that big.... What could be causing this?

Thanks!

Answer 1

The problem actually was the build-up of several caches. If someone else encounters this problem, I suggest to look at the red values under 'Status'-> 'All statusvariables' in your PHPmyAdmin. Enlarging the tmp_table_size and flushing the query cache did wonders for me.

Good luck!

Answer 2

Check you MySQL slow log. Don't forget to add the queries not using indexes in the log.

Fix any queries you find in there.