Implementing these top 10 database optimization tips will help in improving performance and productivity.

1. i. Understand your application workload
ii. Choose the right hardware
iii. Select proper file system
iv. Benchmark your environment
v. Tune your Postgres Server
vi. Perform Log Auditing
vii. Understand your query plan
viii. Tune your queries
ix. Implement proper indexing
x. Run / Schedule Maintenance jobs
Top 10 Tips for Database Optimization

2. TIP 1
Understand Your Application Workload
 How your application is interacting with your database.
 Is your application read intensive or write intensive
 ETL jobs.
 Reporting and Analytical queries

3. CPU
 Which Processor Family?
 More Cores Vs Faster Cores.
RAM
 It depends on Size of working data set.
I/O
 Disk and Disk bandwidth.
Network
 Lag time / Bandwidth
TIP 2
Choose the Right Hardware

4. Pg_buffercache

5.  What is your storage stagey?
SATA VS SCSI
DAS VS SAN
 RAID POLICY
 RAID CONTROLLER SETTINGS
 Monitor o/p of iostat
 Distribute DB objects across Tablespaces
 Maintain Separate Disk for pg_xlog
Storage

6.  Journaling file systems.
Ext3
 Ext4
 Xfs
TIP 3
Select proper File System

7. TIP 4
Benchmark Your Environment
 CPU: PassMark, Sysbench
 RAM: memtest, cachebench
 I/O: bonnie++, dd
 Network: bwping, netperf
 DB: pgBench, Sysbench
Hardware and Database Tests:

8.  max_connections
 shared_buffers
Effective_cache_size
Work_mem
Maintenance_work_mem
TIP 5
Tune Your PostgreSQL Server
Experiment with Best Values

9. TIP 6
Perform Log Auditing
Enable slow running queries in PostgreSQL :
 Log_min_duration_statement
 Pg_stat_statements
 Pgbadger,EPOA
 Auto-explain

11. TIP 7
Understand your Query Plan
 EXPLAIN Command
 Scan Methods
 Join Methods

12. Query Plan

13. TIP 8
Tune your queries
 Performance Tips
 Indexes
 WHERE clause
 JOINs

14. TIP 9
Implement Proper Indexing
 Indexes
 Partial Indexes
 Expression Indexes
 Unique Indexes
 Multi-column Indexes
 Managing / Maintaining Indexes
 Unused Indexes and Index bloat

15. TIP 10
Run / Schedule Maintenance Jobs
 PostgreSQL Vacuum & Analyze
 Maintenance & Performance