DBA Survival Guide

Hello all, Someone asked me about sending my msg showing the Table of Contents from Joe Lumbley's DBA Survival Guide. I thought I'd just repost it here in case anyone else out there is curious about the book. I've been reading the book and so far it's pretty good. Evita Chapa erc@antares-dev.com --TABLE OF CONTENTS-- PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS CHAPTER 1 THE DATABASE ADMINISTRATOR: DOING THE JOB Typical DBA job functions Keeping the database running Training the users Providing services to users Disaster recovery Planning for the future Tuning the database Maintaining security Interfacing with your peers The system administrator Computer operators Informix support Your Informix account representative Hardware and operating system vendors Users' groups Internet and the general user community CHAPTER 2 UNDERSTANDING THE ONLINE ARCHITECTURE Understanding the data flow OnLine: a multiuser RDBMS OnLine: supports transactions Tracking the flow of data Understanding the physical architecture Processes and daemons Disk storage Units of disk storage Chunks Pages Extents Tablespaces Dbspaces Blobspaces How UNIX manages memory Text segment Data segment Stack space How OnLine manages shared memory Contents of OnLine shared memory Latches Locks Chunks and dbspaces Users Transactions Tblspaces Buffers LRUs Page cleaners Logs Profiles Summary CHAPTER 3 UNDERSTANDING LOGGING General logging concepts Transaction rollback Restoring from tape Fast recovery Logging modes No logging Buffered logging Unbuffered logging Saving the log files Long transactions Size, number, and location of logfiles CHAPTER 4 UNDERSTANDING ARCHIVES Limitations of the tbtape program General archive concepts Archive devices Archive schedules CHAPTER 5 UNDERSTANDING THE UTILITIES Tbstat Using tbstat tbstat - - tbstat - tbstat -d Usage tips tbstat -D tbstat -z tbstat -u tbstat -t tbstat -s Tips on using the tbstat -s output: tbstat -k tbstat -b and tbstat -B tbstat -R tbstat -F tbstat -l tbstat -p and tbstat -P tbstat - r and stacking tbstat options tbstat -a tbstat -m tbstat -c tbstat (no options) The tbcheck utility tbcheck -ce and tbcheck -pe Practical uses for tbcheck -pe tbcheck -pt tbcheck -pT tbcheck - ci and tbcheck -cI tbcheck -cc and tbcheck -pc tbcheck -pr database_name Data movement utilities General concepts Requirements of the other system Contents of the data Logging status of your OnLine system Indexing requirements Degree of logical consistency between tables Time frame UNIX resources OnLine resources tbtape -s (archive and restore) tbunload/tbload dbexport/dbimport dbloadUNLOAD TO filename select_statement and LOAD FROM filename insert_statementReports to a File OUTPUT TO filename WITHOUT HEADINGS select_statement isql and dbaccess CHAPTER 6 HOW DO I? Run SQL from the command line? Find out how much space is being used by tables? Find duplicate values in a table? Clean out tables? Recreate a table with the same parameters as the original? Clean selected data out of a table? Know if OnLine is running? Convert table numbers to table names? Find database names from a script? Find database names from an ESQL/C program? Maintain a current UPDATE STATISTICS? Get table information? Make a fast recovery go faster? Know what a certain user is doing? Translate a UNIX user ID to a real name? Run an archive in the background and monitor It? Locate areas of high disk activity? Tell if continuous backup of logfiles is running? Kill a backend? Identify temporary tables? Know when I'm in a checkpoint? Monitor and report on table sizes? Fight table proliferation? The status script Understanding the status screen CHAPTER 7 COMMON DBA TASKS Installing and setting up OnLine Maintaining a logbook The installation procedure Designing the database Understanding your database structure Normalization of the database Table management Sizing and physical storage IN DBSPACENAME EXTENT SIZE NEXT SIZE Reclaiming space Dropping and recreating the table Implicitly recreating the table Avoiding and curing table fragmentation Index management B+tree indexes How indexes are stored Meeting users' needs Understanding the needs of your users End users Advanced users Programmers Executives DBAs Designing database systems Hardware Processor decisions Disk storage systems Physical disk configuration: Disk striping Disk mirroring RAIDS Avoiding mistakes in the development process The OSCAR syndrome Monitoring and troubleshooting The most common cause of database crashes Thawing out a frozen system Jobs that just fail CHAPTER 8 TUNING THE DATABASE SYSTEM OnLine system tuning: the process Establishing a baseline Setting your goals Application of tuning techniques Measurement of the effects Techniques of database tuning Tune the operating system first Get the database running Optimize the database design Table layout and normalization Optimize the indexes Ground rules for indexes Concurrency issues LOCK MODE Bottlenecks Isolation Levels Tuning the application code SQL do's and don'ts Do Don't Understanding the OnLine optimizer Using SET EXPLAIN Things to watch for in query plans Tuning the engine Tuning the shared memory buffers Tuning the log buffers Tuning the page cleaners Controlling the page cleaning Checkpoint frequency CHAPTER 9 DBA TOOLS Informix tools INFORMIX-HyperScript Tools INFORMIX-DBA INFORMIX-ViewPoint Third-party tools S-Designor Intelligencia DB-Privileges BreakAway Technologies toolkits Public domain software ISQLPERL comp.database.informix archives INDEX -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joe Lumbley(jlumbley@netcom.com) Dallas, Texas author of: INFORMIX DBA Survival Guide from Prentice-Hall/Informix Press ISBN 0-13-124314-4 (12431-3) Now available in bookstores orders: orders@prenhall.com (515) 284-6761 fax (515) 284-2607 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------