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High Performance MySQL
With a title like High Performance MySQL, the reader should not expect assistance with tasks such as installation or the basics of SQL. The authors acknowledge that the book isn't meant for the MySQL beginner. Even so, the book does spend a little time going over a refresher of MySQL. If the reader is looking for a book on the basics of MySQL, though, I'd recommend picking up a different title. I might be so brazen as to suggest looking at the book on MySQL that I wrote a couple years ago, but I'll leave it for the reader to find an appropriate title for their level of knowledge with MySQL.
The book is broken out into ten chapters, beginning with a chapter on the basics of MySQL as seen from someone with some level of MySQL experience. (And since I am someone with some level of MySQL knowledge, this chapter didn't seem to be too painful of a read.) That statement begs for a further explanation. I find it painful to read books that claim to have advanced topics but find it necessary to spend (or waste) time by giving yet another explanation of how to type ./configure; make; make install in the beginning chapter. In this regard, I find High Performance MySQL to be quite good at providing the appropriate level of explanation for the audience.
The first pages alone are a great starting point for those who are wondering about the performance as it relates to the different versions of MySQL. A discussion of the binary versions of MySQL versus the source code versions gives the reader a good understanding of the implications of this important decision. Choosing correctly between the versions of MySQL can help to maximize performance.
Though only the first chapter is titled "Back to Basics," most chapters include some basic or background information pertinent to that chapter. For example, both the query and index performance-related chapters include sections with the word 'Basic' in their titles. These two chapters, "Index Performance" and "Query Performance," cover topics often misunderstood when considering performance on a database. Naturally, any database administrator worth their pay (insert your own joke here) will tell you that an index can help to improve performance. But High Performance MySQL takes it a step further by diving into why you might use a particular index given your database needs. This type of practical information is common throughout the book. Rather than just give the reader a listing of the indexes (which are mostly common among RDBMS anyway), the authors choose to tell you why you might choose one method over another.
Other chapters within High Performance MySQL include chapters on server performance tuning, replication, load balancing, and high-availability, backup and recovery, and security. I've followed MySQL forums and mailing lists over the years and some of the more common questions relate to MySQL security. The chapter on security gives the reader a great explanation of the MySQL GRANT tables and includes a sidebar on the significance of 'localhost' in MySQL which nearly always seems to be a source of confusion, though maybe not for the reader of this particular book. Like other chapters, the security chapter includes tips for the underlying environment upon which MySQL operates. For example, regardless of how good the MySQL database permissions are configured, if another piece of software on the server isn't kept up to date then the entire server, including the MySQL data, could be compromised.
Looking back at the book, I might have laid the chapters out in a different order or provided more structure through sections of the book. However, this can be dismissed as personal opinion and is non-substantive anyway. I believe High Performance MySQL is an excellent choice for the MySQL administrator or developer not only looking to improve their database performance but also to improve his knowledge of MySQL.
You can purchase High Performance MySQL from bn.com. (And the book that Suehring alludes to is the MySQL Bible . Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
I'm going all out here.
MySQL is better than PostgreSQL
Redhat is better than Debian
Windows XP is better than MAC OS X
Bush is better than Kerry
Conservatives are beter than Liberals
Americans are better than Europeans
etc. etc. etc.
I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
That's true of all databases (not just MySQL). Inserting to a table that has an index requires a cost to index the new data.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Maybe, but understand that some of us who are MySQL admins may have been thrust into that position as a result of our jobs and not necessarily because we were trained on databases.
My background is in Electrical Engineering, but as part of my duty I am in charge of maintaining our company's data base. I'm probably the most qualified person here to do it too; but my knowledge of databases doesn't extend much farther than select/insert/update. Sound to me like this book could help me learn a thing or two about what I'm "administrating".
In what type of application do they use it? I would not imagine as a primary database, do they?
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Actually, lack of live backups was one of my biggest fears with using MySQL as well and the book actually does address this.
The caveat: You need to set up replication. This is a good idea anyways for a high performance system in case the master crashes and you need another system available quickly.
It works like this:
1. Set up replication.
2. Do a locked table backup on the slave.
The nice things are the details like how the new version of MySQL uses two threads on the slave. One to copy the transactions to the local drive and the other to apply the transactions. Because of this, your local transaction log is up to date even if the transactions haven't been applied which subsequently means you don't have missing transactions if there is a crash on the master during the backup.
This is seriously a good book. Okay, you might want to use PostgreSQL for its feature set but if you are doing write few read mostly with the web as the application, this book seriously gives you the confidence to use MySQL. Up until I read this book, I didn't know enough about MySQL performance implications to trust it for scalability. Now I know what I need to do to get it.
Sunny
Be my Friend