Log Buffer #138: A Carnival of the Vanities for DBAs

Welcome to the 138^th edition of Log Buffer, the weekly review of database blogs. If you aren’t aware of who I am, my name is Nick and I am a Senior DBA at The Pythian Group. This is my second run at hosting Log Buffer, and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did creating it.

As we see winter giving way to summer, I thought I would start with Informix.
Over at Informix-technology Fernando talks about FUD for thought where he talks about the future of Informix vs. DB2.

Sticking with IBM, I thought that we should take a look at what Bryan Smith says in this post about call for feedback, where he discuss the need for feedback on the Data Studio administration console.

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of Informix. Let’s switch to DB2, and Henrik Loeser where he discuss the DB2 Information Center and does still mention Informix as well as DB2.

Let’s do some general SQL, and watch Stephane Farroult talking about rewriting sql queries in 9 minutes for performance.

Having covered IBM, let’s switch to Oracle and Eric Emrick, where he talks about database continuity for a while, and then let’s go over to Pythian’s Don Seiler and his talk on how redundancy isn’t good for retention policies, in his blog RMAN Redundancy is not a Viable Policy.

Now let’s continue in the Oracle swamp for a few moments while we take some time to think about what Tanel Poder has to say about Oracle’s diagnostic events and KSD debugs.

As a MySQL DBA we’ve had issues with hierarchical data. But this isn’t MySQL, it’s about what Tyler Muth can do without resorting to PL/SQL loops, in this post: Hierarchical Query to Unordered List. Now, Pete Finnigan talks about CPUs and security in his blog, IOUG Critical Patch Update Survey Results Are Out.

So, switching back to performance (sorry, I follow an internal preference here, mixing it up a bit), Randol Geist examines Basic SQL statement performance, where he discuss how to perform a performance diagnostic.

Let’s switch over to MySQL, starting with a blog called Looking at MySQL from an IDS perspective: Introduction which covers how MySQL works and its strengths and weaknesses. Following in the same series of blogposts, Looking at MySQL from an IDS perspective: The MySQL Editions shows the differences between each MySQL edition—very good info for anyone thinking about using MySQL.

Over at MySQL Performance Blog Baron Schwartz discuss about the truth about filesort, in his blogpost What does Using filesort mean in MySQL? .

On When Pet Projects Bite Back, there’s Jonathan’s discussion on how best to move your production systems without encountering downtime.

Matt, over at Big DBA Head discusses the 5 minute DBA, and the need for monitoring, and he gives some information on how to do just that. Quite interesting.

Almost last—an emergency. Arjen asks if you have a fork stuck in your head, and discusses what you’d do if you did. But, he also explains why he likes to get at the “why” of your MySQL issue instead of provide an easy answer, which is very common in the MySQL world—everything depends.

To close, I think this blog by Cary Millsap is my favorite blog of the week, where Cary talks about Maths as well as educational techniques. Very worthwhile reading. The blog is called Dad, do I really need math?.

I hope you all enjoyed this week’s Log Buffer, and maybe if Dave thought I did a good job, I will get the chance of writing another one in the future. Until then, take care of your databases.