Conuery

From DreamHost

DreamHost uses statistic they invented called a conuery to track the usage of MySQL databases by its customers. Conueries compensate for the fact that connections to a database require much more processing than a query does.

The formula for a page's conuery use is (25 * connections) + queries. For example, if a particular page connects to a database and then performs 10 searches, its conuery count will be 35.

The disproportionate cost of connections means that it's a good idea to keep tables that will often need to be accessed together in the same database.