High Availability MySQL Cookbook [Paperback]

Alex Davies (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 27, 2010

This book uses the approach of a cookbook. Each recipe provides the reader with easy step-by-step descriptions of the actions necessary to accomplish a specific task. It is designed to present what often appear as extremely complicated techniques as a series of simple-to-follow recipes, allowing readers to achieve high uptimes on their MySQL servers. This book is targeted at system administrators or database administrators who have basic familiarity with Linux, the shell, and MySQL. The typical user will be able to get MySQL installed and working, but needs practical guidance to make it highly available.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Alex Davies

Alex Davies has a wealth of experience working with MySQL, becoming a founding member of the MySQL Guilds before the age of 18. Author of the first book on MySQL Clustering, published in 2006, Alex has significant experience working on MySQL servers, often working on scalability and high availability problems.

Product Details

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Packt Publishing (April 27, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847199941
• ISBN-13: 978-1847199942
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,132,629 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good guide for novice to intermediate MySQL DBAs, May 3, 2010

By 

David M. Stokes "david_stokes" (DFW, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: High Availability MySQL Cookbook (Paperback)

MySQL is an easy database to get running initially but it can be tricky to run in demanding environments. High Availability MySQL Cookbook is a relatively thin book packed with information.

The first four chapters are on the care and feeding of a MySQL 7.x Cluster. It starts simply with an initial configuration, covers backups & replication, covers user defined partitioning, and covers troubleshooting node failures. The examples are short, to the point, and devoid of any unneeded filler.

Next come chapters on replication including the very tricky Multi Master Replication. Used shared storage is covered in a separate chapter from DRBD. The book finishes strongly with performance tuning.

The good points -- the book is concise and not padded with filler. The bad is that it is too short. Considering how well the author covers the topics that may not be too big a of a problem. For a novice to intermediate level MySQL DBA, this is a valuable guide on making your databases highly available. Long time MySQL DBAs will find nothing new but might appreciate the clear and concise explanations presented.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Achieving MySQL high availability through step by step, July 5, 2010

By 

Patrice Guay - See all my reviews

This review is from: High Availability MySQL Cookbook (Paperback)

Under the CentOS distribution, a MySQL database service can be transformed into an highly available service using different approaches. High Availability MySQL Cookbook presents them:
* MySQL Cluster
* MySQL replication
* Shared storage
* Block-level replication

This book is mainly focused on the MySQL Cluster approach with four (4) entire chapters dedicated to this method. The three (3) remaining approaches are covered in dedicated single chapters while the last chapter covers performance tuning of MySQL.

The configuration examples presented in the book are rich and well explained. These examples could be used to quickly set up an highly available MySQL database from scratch. However, the inner workings of MySQL in a highly available configuration could be more detailed. The graphical representations used to illustrate the theory behind the examples are poorly designed.

Another weakness of this book is the proposed method of installation for the Multi Master Replication Manager (MMM). The author recommends the installation of source packages. While these tools are a valuable resource for a multi-master replication configuration, the use of manually installed software on a production environment should be avoided. The author should provide a way to install these tools via a set of packages specifically built for the CentOS distribution.

Nonetheless, this book is a valuable resource for a novice to intermediate level MySQL database administrator in his journey toward making its database highly available.