Refactoring SQL Applications

by Stephane Faroult, Pascal L'Hermite

Overview

What can you do when database performance doesn't meet expectations? Before you turn to expensive hardware upgrades to solve the problem, reach for this book. Refactoring SQL Applications provides a set of tested options for making code modifications to dramatically improve the way your database applications function. Backed by real-world examples, you'll find quick fixes for simple problems, in-depth answers for more complex situations, and complete solutions for applications with extensive problems. Learn to:

• Determine if and where you can expect performance gains
• Apply quick fixes, such as limiting calls to the database in stored functions and procedures
• Refactor tasks, such as replacing application code by a stored procedure, or replacing iterative, procedural statements with sweeping SQL statements
• Refactor flow by increasing parallelism and switching business-inducted processing from synchronous to asynchronous
• Refactor design using schema extensions, regular views, materialized views, partitioning, and more
• Compare before and after versions of a program to ensure you get the same results once you make modifications

Refactoring SQL Applications teaches you to recognize and assess code that needs refactoring, and to understand the crucial link between refactoring and performance. If and when your application bogs down, this book will help you get it back up to speed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780596514976
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	08/01/2008
Pages:	295
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Stephane Faroult first discovered relational databases and the SQL language back in 1983. He joined Oracle France in their early days (after a brief spell with IBM and a bout of teaching at the University of Ottawa) and soon developed an interest in performance and tuning topics. After leaving Oracle in 1988, he briefly tried to reform and did a bit of operational research, but after one year, he succumbed again to relational databases. He has been continuously performing database consultancy since then, and founded RoughSea Ltd in 1998.

Pascal L'Hermite has been working with relational databases in OLTP, production and development environments on Oracle Databases for the past 12 years and on Microsoft SQL Server for the past 5 years.

Table of Contents

Preface; Why Refactor?; Refactoring Database Accesses; How This Book Is Organized; Audience; Assumptions This Book Makes; Conventions Used in This Book; Using Code Examples; Comments and Questions; Safari® Books Online; Acknowledgments; Chapter 1: Assessment; 1.1 A Simple Example; 1.2 Assessing Possible Gains; Chapter 2: Sanity Checks; 2.1 Statistics and Data Skewness; 2.2 Indexing Review; 2.3 Parsing and Bind Variables; 2.4 Bulk Operations; 2.5 Transaction Management; Chapter 3: User Functions and Views; 3.1 User-Defined Functions; 3.2 Views; Chapter 4: Testing Framework; 4.1 Generating Test Data; 4.2 Comparing Alternative Versions; Chapter 5: Statement Refactoring; 5.1 Execution Plans and Optimizer Directives; 5.2 Analyzing a Slow Query; 5.3 Refactoring the Query Core; 5.4 Rebuilding the Initial Query; Chapter 6: Task Refactoring; 6.1 The SQL Mindset; 6.2 Restructuring the Code; Chapter 7: Refactoring Flows and Databases; 7.1 Reorganizing Processing; 7.2 Shaking Foundations; Chapter 8: How It Works: Refactoring in Practice; 8.1 Can You Look at the Database?; 8.2 Queries of Death; 8.3 All These Fast Queries; 8.4 No Obvious Very Wrong Query; 8.5 Time to Conclude; Scripts and Sample Programs; Chapter 1; Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4; Chapter 5; Chapter 6; Chapter 7 (MySQL); Tools; mklipsum and lipsum; Roughbench;