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This book is rather controversial. I'll begin with a quote from the preface:
QUOTE
...we've written it for users and programmers who want to improve SQL performance, no matter what brand of SQL they use. In this book, you'll find tuning tips for common situations... Rather than exploiting the unique features of a single DBMS, we're going to give you ideas that are good for all of the major SQL DBMSs.
END QUOTE
Sounds good, but !
The biggest idea behind this book is that the authors took 8 most common databases (as per 2002: DB2, Informix, Ingres, Interbase, MS SQL, MySQL, Oracle, Sybase) and sort of compared them on many different subjects. I said "sort of" because you won't find specific recommendations like "DB2 does this better", or "this makes the query faster on Oracle". Instead, the authors came up with this idea - upon each discussed topic they summarize the gain that you might possibly get from using that particular technique should you be using it on _all_ of the 8 databases. They put it like:
GAIN: x/8
which means that with the discussed trick in place, x out of 8 databases performed better (and the rest showed no improvement).
Two things make it break - (1) there is only so many tricks that improve on most databases (it's commonly 3/8) and (2) there is no way to tell which of 8 showed an improvement.
And so, how does it help me as a database administrator and developer ? I only work with 2, may be 3 specific database servers and there is no way to tell whether _they_ gained from that trick or not. All I can do is to keep all tricks in mind, apply them all anyway and hope it was my database that had an improvement. Or, I can re-run tests and see for myself.Read more ›
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There's a lot of ground to cover between being able to put together a SQL query that runs and being able to construct a query that works well. The journey is all the more complicated when you're trying to target multiple RDBMSes, each with its own nuances and oddities. That's where this book shines. By going for breadth--picking 8 major RDMBS and contrasting how they behave in the face of various SQL constructs and optimizations, plus covering some general theory, this book conveys a quality of information that vendor-specific books lack. I knew a fair amount about databases and SQL before picking up the book, and came away with a much better feeling for the terrain, and a new set of optimization tricks. It's unfortunate, but perhaps unavoidable, that some details (e.g. lack of information on transactions and subselects in MySQL) where out-of-date by the time the book was published. It's also unfortunate that the authors were prevented by vendor license agreements from providing performance hard numbers. Don't get this book to learn how to optimize for a particular vendor's database. Study it to broaden your skills.
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I've just finished chapter 7 and 15. The book offers quite interesting information. It's written very well and easy to understand. Plus a special sense of humor ;-) The information gathered must not be used immediately, but helps when making decisions on database design and usage. This is because, you gain an overview on what the "big eight" do, thus you better understand what your decision could mean, when switching databases. It's a book suitable for both experts and beginners, though basic sql knowledge is expected.
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Over the years I've developed a number of systems that utilized relational databases. When I developed or used a complex and/or large database, more often than not I found that database performance was the main issue, especially in real-time or near real-time applications. I have been interested in the databases *only* to the point of satisfying my projects' needs and considered them subordinate to the rest of the systems. I did realize the complexity of RDBMSs implementations, but never cared to learn more than I necessary to solve an immediate problem at hand. Maybe this is why I've never really enjoyed reading about the databases: I believed that the databases and SQL were quite boring comparing to all the elegance and slickness of C++, Java, CORBA, and other object-oriented technologies.
"SQL Performance Tuning" changed my perception of that; I was hooked just after just a few sentences. The language, the obvious depth of the authors' knowledge, the wide and careful coverage of all related issues, including the very fundamentals of the relational databases are presented as needed; and mostly, the enjoyably right balance between the theory and practice makes this book an outstanding read. I have not read most of it yet, but I am very excited about what I will find in the rest of it, even if it is something that I think I know well.
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This is one of the few SQL books that has practical examples and addresses DB2, Informix, SQL Server, and Oracle. It contains excellent facts on how SQL is processes, which one must understand to write top performing SQL. The authors accomplished just that with this excellent book. You'll get hard to find details on query optimizers, B+tree index structures and many myths you have had will be demystified...
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