PostgreSQL Replication, Zoltan Böszörmenyi and Hans-Jürgen Schönig, ISBN 978-1-84951-672-3

A short review

The book starts out by taking a cursory look at the theoretical foundations of database replication like the impact of communication delays caused by physical distance among other things. This is followed by a detailed introduction of the different types of replication, in particular of synchronous and asynchronous replication and sharding.

Continuing on with an in depth look into the technical intrinsics of PostgreSQL, the author explains clearly the technology behind WAL and thus the technical foundation of the replication solutions that already come with PostgreSQL, namely PITR and streaming replication.

Hands on guides to aide in the actual setup of the various solutions coupled with solutions to common setup problems round off the topic.
Monitoring and high availability aspects, so important for real life applications, are also covered.

The final chapters cover additional systems for replication and sharding that are not themselves part of the PostgreSQL software distribution, such as pgbounce, pgpool, Slony, Skytools and PL/Proxy.

The book is suitable both beginners wanting to start out with a well explained in-depth look into the workings of WAL/PostgreSQL as well as experienced database administrators looking to verify their existing setups and to get pointers for further optimizations.


Regards, Andreas