Best practices for Encrypted ODK forms storage - Database tuning

I have a general question: If we are encrypting ODK form data and storing it in the database, I understand that what actually gets written to the database is a large blob of encrypted data.

Is there specific database tuning parameters that should be used so that a database can handle these large blobs of encrypted data rather than the more standard integers, booleans, strings, etc.

In my specific instance, I am using ODK v1.4.15, mariadb-server-10.1, Tomcat8
all on Debian GNU/Linux 9

thanks in advance,

Matt @ UW Seatle

Hey @mbw

Great meeting you in this Forum.

My server runs ODK Aggregate v1.6.1 , Tomcat 8 and MariaDB 10 on CentOs 7.

I have faced similar challenges, an ODK Aggregate instance started out ell but as the records the server became slower and slower. I optimized the my.cnf and setenv.sh files (attached).

What has worked for me is I pulled down all the records from the instance using ODK briefcase created a new instance on the optimized SQL DB. The instance is now click and go.

The lesson learnt is to optimize the SQL DB during server setup, this ensures server performance is reliable as the records grow.

Paul Machariamyconf.txt (3.4 KB)
setenv.txt (248 Bytes)

@mbw I'm a big fan of using the defaults, seeing how it performs and adjusting based on what deficiencies you see.