High Performance MySQL opens with a quick chapter describing various MySQL installation options including binary packages and compiling from source code. The next chapter describes the different storage engines available in MySQL and why you would want to choose one over another. This is the book's first hint of what you can do to improve database performance: picking the right table type.
Skilled software developers use benchmarking to gain insight into how their software is performing and database benchmarking should be part of that strategy. A brief chapter introduces some database benchmarking strategies and tools.
Chapters on indexing and query performance follow, describing some of the most important skills to master. Following that, replication and load balancing are discussed. Backup and recovery options are covered, as is the topic of security.
A somewhat thin trio of goodies rounds off the book in the appendices: the SHOW STATUS / SHOW INNODB STATUS commands, the mytop tool, and the phpMyAdmin user interface.
Overall, I found many possible areas for performance improvement that I had not thought of before. At 278 pages, a lot of material is crammed into this book. It's a quick read and if you're a MySQL admin or a developer using MySQL, you're bound to find something useful here!
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