Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
13
Down to the Metal: Server
Resources and Topology
We must beat the iron while it is hot, but we may
polish it at leisure.
—John Dryden (1631-1700)
The real problem is not whether machines think
but whether men do.
—B. F. Skinner (1904-1990)
D
atabases are intended to perform an abstraction from the application space to the
data. However, despite the abstraction, as an industry we have yet to completely
shield the database designer from the nuances of system design. It remains the case that
to build a high-quality database system with good performance, longevity, and availabil-
ity, the designers need a reasonable understanding of systems architecture and recovery
strategies. In fact the range of systems issues that database designers need to understand
is profound: multiprocessor servers, disk systems, network topologies, disaster-recovery
techniques, performance models, and memory management. This is a broad space that
realistically deserves a few topics of its own. However, a book on database design would
be incomplete without at least a summary discussion of the issues. The good news is
that instead of buying another topic, you'll now get a crash course on the issues here in
a single chapter. The bad news is that this treatment can't possibly be sufficient. What
follows is an attempt to strike the right balance between the need of the database
designer to understand the systems issues relating to database design, and a careful bal-
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