Preface

 

PostgreSQL is an open source database management tool 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. 

What this book covers

Chapter 1, PostgreSQL Overview, will give you an overview of PostgreSQL and its features. You will learn about new stuff and new functionality available in PostgreSQL.

 

Chapter 2, Understanding Transactions and Locking, will cover one of the most important aspects of any database system. Proper database work is usually not possible without the existence of transactions, and understanding transactions and locking is vital to performance as well as professional work.

 

Chapter 3, Making Use of Indexes, covers everything you need to know about indexes. Indexes are key to performance and are therefore an important cornerstone if you want good user experience and high throughput. All important aspects of indexing will be covered.

 

Chapter 4, Handling Advanced SQL, will introduce some of the most important concepts of modern SQL. You will learn about windowing functions as well as other important, more modern, elements of SQL.

 

Chapter 5, Log Files and System Statistics, will guide you through more administrative tasks, such as log file management and monitoring. You will learn how to inspect your servers and extract runtime information from PostgreSQL.

 

Chapter 6, Optimizing for Good Query Performance, will tell you everything you need to know about good PostgreSQL performance. The chapter will cover SQL tuning as well as information about memory management.

 

Chapter 7, Writing Stored Procedures, teaches you some more advanced topics related to server-side code. The most important server-side programming languages are covered and important aspects are pointed out.

Chapter 8, Managing PostgreSQL Security, has been designed to help you improve the security of your server. The chapter features everything from user management to row-level security. Information about encryption is also included.

 

Chapter 9, Handling Backup and Recovery, is all about backups and data recovery. You will learn to backup your data and it will enable you to restore things in case of disaster.

 

Chapter 10, Making Sense of Backups and Replication, is all about redundancy. You will learn to asynchronously and synchronously replicate PostgreSQL database systems. All modern features are covered as extensively as possible.

 

Chapter 11, Deciding on Useful Extensions, describes widely used modules that add additional functionality to PostgreSQL. You will learn about the most common extensions.

 

Chapter 12, Troubleshooting PostgreSQL, offers a systematic approach to fixing problems in PostgreSQL. It will enable you to spot common problems and approach them in an organized way.

 

Chapter 13, Migrating to PostgreSQL, is the final chapter of this book and shows you the way from commercial databases to PostgreSQL. The most important databases migrated these days will be covered.

What you need for this book

This book has been written for a broad audience. In order to follow the examples presented in this book, it makes sense to have at least some experience with SQL and maybe even PostgreSQL in general (although this is not a hard requirement). In general, it is a good idea to be familiar with the Unix command line.

Who this book is for

This book has explicitly been written for people who want to know more about PostgreSQL and who are not satisfied with basic information. The aim is to write a book that goes a bit deeper and explains the most important stuff in a clear and easy-to-understand way.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between 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: "In this case, the \timing command will tell psql to show the runtime of a query."

 

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

test=# CREATE TABLE t_test (id serial, name text); 
CREATE TABLE 
test=# INSERT INTO t_test (name) SELECT 'hans'  
FROM generate_series(1, 2000000); 

New terms and important words are shown in bold.

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Note

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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