Scenario: You are conducting database performance testing, and the response time for a specific query is unacceptably slow. How should you approach optimizing the query's performance?

When facing slow response times in specific queries during performance testing, the optimal approach involves employing database performance tuning techniques. This includes query optimization, where SQL queries are fine-tuned to enhance efficiency, and indexing, which improves data retrieval speed by creating appropriate indexes on database tables. Increasing server hardware resources may provide temporary relief but doesn't address underlying inefficiencies in query execution. Rewriting queries can be beneficial but might not always yield significant improvements compared to performance tuning.