How did you realize there was a load on the database? How did you participate in identifying the problem?

The load on the database can be determined by several signs:

• Increase in query response times.
• Growth in the number of active connections.
• High CPU or disk usage on the database server.
• Timeout or locking errors.
• Monitoring metrics (e.g., through Prometheus, Grafana).

In my experience, identifying the problem was as follows:

1. First, we noticed the application slowing down and user complaints.
2. Checked database logs and metrics — saw an increase in query execution times and locks.
3. Used query profiling tools (e.g., slow query log in MySQL).
4. Analyzed problematic queries, identified inefficient indexes or heavy operations.
5. Proposed optimizations: adding indexes, modifying queries, caching.

Thus, my participation involved monitoring, analyzing metrics and logs, and working with the team to eliminate bottlenecks.