PostgreSQL is an incredibly flexible and dependable open source relational database. Harnessing its power will make your applications more reliable and extensible without increasing costs. Using PostgreSQL's advanced features will save you work and increase performance, once you've discovered how to set it up.
PostgreSQL for Data Architects will teach you everything you need to learn in order to get a scalable and optimized PostgreSQL server up and running.
The book starts with basic concepts (such as installing PostgreSQL from source) and covers theoretical aspects (such as concurrency and transaction management). After this, you'll learn how to set up replication, use load balancing to scale horizontally, and troubleshoot errors.
As you continue through this book, you will see the significant impact of configuration parameters on performance, scalability, and transaction management. Finally, you will get acquainted with useful tools available in the PostgreSQL ecosystem used to analyze PostgreSQL logs, set up load balancing, and recovery.
Chapter 1, Installing PostgreSQL, provides an overview of the process to install PostgreSQL from source. The chapter covers the prerequisites to compile from source, and the process to initialize a cluster in Unix/Linux environment. It also covers the directory structure.
Chapter 2, Server Architecture, covers the important processes started when we start a PostgreSQL cluster and how they work along with the memory structures to provide the functionality expected from a database management system.
Chapter 3, PostgreSQL – Object Hierarchy and Roles, explains various object types and objects provided by PostgreSQL. Important concepts such as databases, clusters, tablespaces, and schemas are covered in this chapter.
Chapter 4, Working with Transactions, covers ACID properties of transactions, isolation levels, and how PostgreSQL provides them. Multiversion concurrency control is another topic dealt with in this chapter.
Chapter 5, Data Modeling with SQL Power Architect, talks about how we can model tables and relationships with SQL Power Architect. Some of the aspects that should be considered when we choose a design tool are also covered in this chapter.
Chapter 6, Client Tools, covers two clients tools (pgAdmin: a UI tool and psql: a command-line tool). Browsing database objects, generating queries, and generating the execution plan for queries using pgAdmin are covered. Setting up the environment variables for connecting from psql, viewing history of SQL commands executed, and meta-commands are also covered in this chapter.
Chapter 7, SQL Tuning, explains query optimization techniques. To set the context, some patterns about database use and theory on how the PostgreSQL optimizer works are covered.
Chapter 8, Server Tuning, covers PostgreSQL server settings that have significant impact on query performance. These include memory settings, cost settings, and so on. Two object types: partitions and materialized views are also covered in this chapter.
Chapter 9, Tools to Move Data in and out of PostgreSQL, covers common tools/utilities, such as pg_dump, pg_bulkload, and copy used to move data in and out of PostgreSQL.
Chapter 10, Scaling, Replication, and Backup and Recovery, covers methods that are usually used for achievability. A step-by-step method to achieve horizontal scalability using PostgreSQL's streaming replication and pgpool-II is also presented. Point-in-time recovery for PostgreSQL is also covered in this chapter.
Chapter 11, PostgreSQL – Troubleshooting, explains a few of the most common problems developers run into when they start off with PostgreSQL and how to troubleshoot them. Connection issues, privilege issues, and parameter setting issues are also covered.
Chapter 12, PostgreSQL – Extras, covers quite a few topics. Some interesting data types that every data architect should be aware of, a couple of really useful extensions, and a tool to analyze PostgreSQL log files are covered. It also covers a few interesting features available in PostgreSQL 9.4.
A computer with access to the Internet is mandatory. It will definitely help if the computer is running on a Unix/Linux operating system.
You are expected to have some exposure to databases. Basic familiarity with database objects such as tables and views is expected. You will find this book really useful if you have no or a little exposure to PostgreSQL. If you have been working with PostgreSQL for a few years, you should still find a few useful commands that you were not aware of or a couple of optimization approaches you have not tried. You will also gain more insight into how the database works.
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish among different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "We will use the following wget command to download the source."
A block of code/SQL at psql prompt as well as the output from the server at psql is set as follows:
CREATE TABLE emp(id serial, first_name varchar(50));
Commands executed at shell/command prompt, the output, and parameters and settings are formatted as follows:
[root@MyCentOS ~]# ps f -U postgres PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND 1918 tty1 S 0:00 /usr/local/pgsql/bin/postgres
New terms and important words are shown in bold.
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book—what you liked or disliked. Reader feedback is important for us as it helps us develop titles that you will really get the most out of.
To send us general feedback, simply e-mail <[email protected]>, and mention the book's title in the subject of your message.
If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide at www.packtpub.com/authors.
Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.
You can download the example code files from your account at http://www.packtpub.com for all the Packt Publishing books you have purchased. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.
Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in the text or the code—we would be grateful if you could report this to us. By doing so, you can save other readers from frustration and help us improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/submit-errata, selecting your book, clicking on the Errata Submission Form link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata will be uploaded to our website or added to any list of existing errata under the Errata section of that title.
To view the previously submitted errata, go to https://www.packtpub.com/books/content/support and enter the name of the book in the search field. The required information will appear under the Errata section.
Piracy of copyrighted material on the Internet is an ongoing problem across all media. At Packt, we take the protection of our copyright and licenses very seriously. If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the Internet, please provide us with the location address or website name immediately so that we can pursue a remedy.
Please contact us at <[email protected]> with a link to the suspected pirated material.
We appreciate your help in protecting our authors and our ability to bring you valuable content.
If you have a problem with any aspect of this book, you can contact us at <[email protected]>, and we will do our best to address the problem.