Chapter 10. Hosting a Database Server

Databases supporting the industry-standard Structured Query Language (SQL) have become a mainstay for producing dynamic Web pages, as well as storing, collating, and indexing data. In addition to the expensive high-end database servers like Oracle, a number of powerful, freely usable open-source database-management systems, such as MySQL, have arisen over the past few years.

MySQL is the world's most popular open-source database (although PostgreSQL does seem to be on the rise), claiming to be unmatched in speed, compactness, stability, and ease of development. These claims have been proved on busy Web servers across the Internet, making it ideally suited to even small Web servers hosting e-commerce sites, forums, or even just a listing of your CDs or books.

This chapter focuses on installing MySQL and handling administrative tasks. If you want to learn SQL, check out Larry Ullman's MySQL: Visual QuickStart Guide (Peachpit Press, 2002).