Book Image

Mastering PostgreSQL 9.6

By : Hans-Jürgen Schönig
Book Image

Mastering PostgreSQL 9.6

By: Hans-Jürgen Schönig

Overview of this book

PostgreSQL is an open source database used for handling large datasets (Big Data) and as a JSON document database. It also has applications in the software and web domains. This book will enable you to build better PostgreSQL applications and administer databases more efficiently. We begin by explaining the advanced database design concepts in PostgreSQL 9.6, along with indexing and query optimization. You will also see how to work with event triggers and perform concurrent transactions and table partitioning, along with exploring SQL and server tuning. We will walk you through implementing advanced administrative tasks such as server maintenance and monitoring, replication, recovery and high availability, and much more. You will understand the common and not-so-common troubleshooting problems and how you can overcome them. By the end of this book, you will have an expert-level command of the advanced database functionalities and will be able to implement advanced administrative tasks with PostgreSQL.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
PostgreSQL Overview

Performing simple dumps

If you are running a PostgreSQL setup, there are basically two major methods to perform backups:

  • Logical dumps (extract an SQL script representing your data)
  • Transaction log shipping

The idea behind transaction log shipping is to archive binary changes made to the database. Most people claim that transaction log shipping is the only real way to do backups. However, in my opinion this is not necessarily true.

Many people rely on pg_dump to simply extract a textual representation of the data. pg_dump is also the oldest method of creating a backup and has been around since the very early days of the project (transaction log shipping was added much later). Every PostgreSQL administrator will get in touch with pg_dump sooner or later so it is important to know how it really works and what it does.

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