Chapter 8, "Concurrent Access and Locking," looks at the table lock manager. Although the current version of MySQL supports a number of page and row locking storage engines, its history still goes back to the old MyISAM days and is important to the understanding of the system.

Chapter 9, "Parser and Optimizer," will show you the core of how to optimize your queries if you are a DBA trying to fine tune your system. Since this server module is responsible for creating and executing the plan to retrieve the records requested, it becomes important to understand if you want it processed in the least amount of time.

Chapter 10, "Storage Engines," provides you with an overview of the MySQL storage engines. Because there are so many, he only focuses on a few and points you to where you can find out more on some of the others.

Chapter 11, "Transactions," is provided for the developer who wants to learn how to integrate a transactional storage engine into MySQL. Here the author uses the InnoDB as an example to show why things are done.

Chapter 12, "Replication," focuses on MySQL Server's straightforward approach to replication. A server may act as a master or a slave in which the master maintains a log of updates. The slave connects to the master and starts executing the updates as it reads them.

Understanding MySQL Internals provides a very good introduction to the internals of MySQL Server. Being a former member of the MySQL development team from 2000 to 2002 and the original developer of replication in MySQL, Pachev holds a lot of expertise and credibility. My only complaint with the book is that in the set-up and compile, he only explains the Linux version. Since there are a lot of MySQL users on other platforms, some attention should have at least been addressed, and some direction given, to finding the additional information.

That said, if you are a programmer wanting to customize MySQL for specific use, a DBA wanting to optimize your queries or truly understand the inner workings, or if you just like to open the box and see how things work, then Understanding MySQL Internals is your ticket to the big top.