Mysql – Should I use UUID as well as ID

I've been using UUIDs in my systems for a while now for a variety of reasons ranging from logging to delayed correlation. The formats I used changed as I became less naive from:

1. VARCHAR(255)
2. VARCHAR(36)
3. CHAR(36)
4. BINARY(16)

It was when I reached the final one BINARY(16) that I started to compare performance with basic auto-increment integer. The test and results are shown below, but if you just want the summary, it indicates that INT AUTOINCREMENT and BINARY(16) RANDOM have identical performance on data ranges up to 200,000 (the database was pre-populated prior to tests).

I was initially sceptical towards using UUIDs as primary keys, and indeed I still am, however I see potential here to create a flexible database that can use both. Whereas many people stress over the advantages of either, what are the disadvantages cancelled out by using both data types?

• PRIMARY INT
• UNIQUE BINARY(16)

The use case for this type of set up would be the traditional primary key for inter-table relationships, with unique identifier used for inter-system relationships.

What I am essentially trying to discover is difference in efficiency between the two approaches. Besides the quadruple disk space used, which may be largely negligible after additional data is added, they appear to me to be the same.

Schema:

-- phpMyAdmin SQL Dump
-- version 4.0.10deb1
-- http://www.phpmyadmin.net
--
-- Host: localhost
-- Generation Time: Sep 22, 2015 at 10:54 AM
-- Server version: 5.5.44-0ubuntu0.14.04.1
-- PHP Version: 5.5.29-1+deb.sury.org~trusty+3

SET SQL_MODE = "NO_AUTO_VALUE_ON_ZERO";
SET time_zone = "+00:00";


/*!40101 SET @OLD_CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT=@@CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT */;
/*!40101 SET @OLD_CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS=@@CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS */;
/*!40101 SET @OLD_COLLATION_CONNECTION=@@COLLATION_CONNECTION */;
/*!40101 SET NAMES utf8 */;

--
-- Database: `test`
--

-- --------------------------------------------------------

--
-- Table structure for table `with_2id`
--

CREATE TABLE `with_2id` (
  `guidl` bigint(20) NOT NULL,
  `guidr` bigint(20) NOT NULL,
  `data` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`guidl`,`guidr`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

-- --------------------------------------------------------

--
-- Table structure for table `with_guid`
--

CREATE TABLE `with_guid` (
  `guid` binary(16) NOT NULL,
  `data` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`guid`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

-- --------------------------------------------------------

--
-- Table structure for table `with_id`
--

CREATE TABLE `with_id` (
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `data` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=197687 ;

/*!40101 SET CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT=@OLD_CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT */;
/*!40101 SET CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS=@OLD_CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS */;
/*!40101 SET COLLATION_CONNECTION=@OLD_COLLATION_CONNECTION */;

Insert benchmark:

function benchmark_insert(PDO $pdo, $runs)
{
    $data = 'Sample Data';

    $insert1 = $pdo->prepare("INSERT INTO with_id (data) VALUES (:data)");
    $insert1->bindParam(':data', $data);

    $insert2 = $pdo->prepare("INSERT INTO with_guid (guid, data) VALUES (:guid, :data)");
    $insert2->bindParam(':guid', $guid);
    $insert2->bindParam(':data', $data);

    $insert3 = $pdo->prepare("INSERT INTO with_2id (guidl, guidr, data) VALUES (:guidl, :guidr, :data)");
    $insert3->bindParam(':guidl', $guidl);
    $insert3->bindParam(':guidr', $guidr);
    $insert3->bindParam(':data',  $data);

    $benchmark = array();

    $time = time();
    for ($i = 0; $i < $runs; $i++) {
        $insert1->execute();
    }
    $benchmark[1] = 'INC ID:     ' . (time() - $time);

    $time = time();
    for ($i = 0; $i < $runs; $i++) {
        $guid  = openssl_random_pseudo_bytes(16);

        $insert2->execute();
    }
    $benchmark[2] = 'GUID:       ' . (time() - $time);

    $time = time();
    for ($i = 0; $i < $runs; $i++) {
        $guid  = openssl_random_pseudo_bytes(16);
        $guidl = unpack('q', substr($guid, 0, 8))[1];
        $guidr = unpack('q', substr($guid, 8, 8))[1];

        $insert3->execute();
    }
    $benchmark[3] = 'SPLIT GUID: ' . (time() - $time);

    echo 'INSERTION' . PHP_EOL;
    echo '=============================' . PHP_EOL;
    echo $benchmark[1] . PHP_EOL;
    echo $benchmark[2] . PHP_EOL;
    echo $benchmark[3] . PHP_EOL . PHP_EOL;
}

Select benchmark:

function benchmark_select(PDO $pdo, $runs) {
    $select1 = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM with_id WHERE id = :id");
    $select1->bindParam(':id', $id);

    $select2 = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM with_guid WHERE guid = :guid");
    $select2->bindParam(':guid', $guid);

    $select3 = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM with_2id WHERE guidl = :guidl AND guidr = :guidr");
    $select3->bindParam(':guidl', $guidl);
    $select3->bindParam(':guidr', $guidr);

    $keys = array();

    for ($i = 0; $i < $runs; $i++) {
        $kguid  = openssl_random_pseudo_bytes(16);
        $kguidl = unpack('q', substr($kguid, 0, 8))[1];
        $kguidr = unpack('q', substr($kguid, 8, 8))[1];
        $kid = mt_rand(0, $runs);

        $keys[] = array(
            'guid'  => $kguid,
            'guidl' => $kguidl,
            'guidr' => $kguidr,
            'id'    => $kid
        );
    }

    $benchmark = array();

    $time = time();
    foreach ($keys as $key) {
        $id = $key['id'];
        $select1->execute();
        $row = $select1->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
    }
    $benchmark[1] = 'INC ID:     ' . (time() - $time);


    $time = time();
    foreach ($keys as $key) {
        $guid = $key['guid'];
        $select2->execute();
        $row = $select2->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
    }
    $benchmark[2] = 'GUID:       ' . (time() - $time);

    $time = time();
    foreach ($keys as $key) {
        $guidl = $key['guidl'];
        $guidr = $key['guidr'];
        $select3->execute();
        $row = $select3->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
    }
    $benchmark[3] = 'SPLIT GUID: ' . (time() - $time);

    echo 'SELECTION' . PHP_EOL;
    echo '=============================' . PHP_EOL;
    echo $benchmark[1] . PHP_EOL;
    echo $benchmark[2] . PHP_EOL;
    echo $benchmark[3] . PHP_EOL . PHP_EOL;
}

Tests:

$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=test', 'root', '');

benchmark_insert($pdo, 1000);
benchmark_select($pdo, 100000);

Results:

INSERTION
=============================
INC ID:     3
GUID:       2
SPLIT GUID: 3

SELECTION
=============================
INC ID:     5
GUID:       5
SPLIT GUID: 6