Django Query Optimisation - database

Question

I am working currently on telecom analytics project and newbie in query optimisation. To show result in browser it takes a full minute while just 45,000 records are to be accessed. Could you please suggest on ways to reduce time for showing results.
I wrote following query to find call-duration of a person of age-group:
sigma=0
popn=len(Demo.objects.filter(age_group=age))
card_list=[Demo.objects.filter(age_group=age)[i].card_no
for i in range(popn)]
for card in card_list:
dic=Fact_table.objects.filter(card_no=card.aggregate(Sum('duration'))
sigma+=dic['duration__sum']
avgDur=sigma/popn
Above code is within for loop to iterate over age-groups.
Model is as follows:
class Demo(models.Model):
card_no=models.CharField(max_length=20,primary_key=True)
gender=models.IntegerField()
age=models.IntegerField()
age_group=models.IntegerField()
class Fact_table(models.Model):
pri_key=models.BigIntegerField(primary_key=True)
card_no=models.CharField(max_length=20)
duration=models.IntegerField()
time_8bit=models.CharField(max_length=8)
time_of_day=models.IntegerField()
isBusinessHr=models.IntegerField()
Day_of_week=models.IntegerField()
Day=models.IntegerField()
Thanks

Answer 1

Try that:
sigma=0
demo_by_age = Demo.objects.filter(age_group=age);
popn=demo_by_age.count() #One
card_list = demo_by_age.values_list('card_no', flat=True) # Two
dic = Fact_table.objects.filter(card_no__in=card_list).aggregate(Sum('duration') #Three
sigma = dic['duration__sum']
avgDur=sigma/popn

Answer 2

A statement like card_list=[Demo.objects.filter(age_group=age)[i].card_no for i in range(popn)] will generate popn seperate queries and database hits. The query in the for-loop will also hit the database popn times. As a general rule, you should try to minimize the amount of queries you use, and you should only select the records you need.
With a few adjustments to your code this can be done in just one query.
There's generally no need to manually specify a primary_key, and in all but some very specific cases it's even better not to define any. Django automatically adds an indexed, auto-incremental primary key field. If you need the card_no field as a unique field, and you need to find rows based on this field, use this:
class Demo(models.Model):
card_no = models.SlugField(max_length=20, unique=True)
...
SlugField automatically adds a database index to the column, essentially making selections by this field as fast as when it is a primary key. This still allows other ways to access the table, e.g. foreign keys (as I'll explain in my next point), to use the (slightly) faster integer field specified by Django, and will ease the use of the model in Django.
If you need to relate an object to an object in another table, use models.ForeignKey. Django gives you a whole set of new functionality that not only makes it easier to use the models, it also makes a lot of queries faster by using JOIN clauses in the SQL query. So for you example:
class Fact_table(models.Model):
card = models.ForeignKey(Demo, related_name='facts')
...
The related_name fields allows you to access all Fact_table objects related to a Demo instance by using instance.facts in Django. (See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/models/fields/#module-django.db.models.fields.related)
With these two changes, your query (including the loop over the different age_groups) can be changed into a blazing-fast one-hit query giving you the average duration of calls made by each age_group:
age_groups = Demo.objects.values('age_group').annotate(duration_avg=Avg('facts__duration'))
for group in age_groups:
print "Age group: %s - Average duration: %s" % group['age_group'], group['duration_avg']
.values('age_group') selects just the age_group field from the Demo's database table. .annotate(duration_avg=Avg('facts__duration')) takes every unique result from values (thus each unique age_group), and for each unique result will fetch all Fact_table objects related to any Demo object within that age_group, and calculate the average of all the duration fields - all in a single query.