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Systems Engineering Track

Databases at Scale

Price a key choice in bytes written, reproduce the isolation anomalies your default level still permits, read the plan that misled the optimiser, and sequence a schema change that stays reversible until the last step.

Advanced · production systems
About 175 min reading
40 authored sections

Before you start: SQL you write without looking things up, and a relational database you operate in production.

Plan for 5–7 hours of hands-on work in addition to reading. This is an initial estimate; setup and extensions vary.

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A useful preview, not a teaser

Read these complete sections to judge the technical depth, teaching style, and architecture standard before buying.

Preview 1

Course Contract: What You Will Be Able to Operate

Fourth in the sequence: what happens inside the database when the system above it gets busy.

Preview 2

The Database Does Not Read Rows

It reads pages. Everything about storage engine behaviour follows from that one fact.

Preview 3

What It Actually Costs to Store a Byte

Five million rows, 572 MiB of data, and up to 39 GiB written to disk.

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Complete curriculum

40 sections · 4 parts + storage studio

Course orientation

  1. Course ContractFree
  2. Start Here If You Are NewCourse Pass
  3. The System So FarCourse Pass

Part 1 · How Bytes Reach the Disk

  1. Pages and LocalityFree
  2. B-treesCourse Pass
  3. LSM TreesCourse Pass
  4. Bloom Filters and CompactionCourse Pass
  5. Write AmplificationFree
  6. The Write-Ahead LogCourse Pass
  7. Indexes That Earn Their KeepCourse Pass
  8. Cardinality and SelectivityCourse Pass

Part 2 · Concurrency and Isolation

  1. ACID Beyond the AcronymCourse Pass
  2. MVCCCourse Pass
  3. The Isolation LadderCourse Pass
  4. The Lost UpdateCourse Pass
  5. Write SkewCourse Pass
  6. Getting Serializable, Three WaysCourse Pass
  7. Optimistic and PessimisticCourse Pass
  8. DeadlocksCourse Pass
  9. The Long TransactionCourse Pass
  10. Vacuum and BloatCourse Pass

Part 3 · Running It in Production

  1. Plans and StatisticsCourse Pass
  2. Join AlgorithmsCourse Pass
  3. Connection PoolsCourse Pass
  4. Caching StrategiesCourse Pass
  5. The StampedeCourse Pass
  6. Online Schema ChangesCourse Pass
  7. Zero-Downtime MigrationCourse Pass

Part 4 · Choosing a Store

  1. Polyglot PersistenceCourse Pass
  2. Access-Pattern-FirstCourse Pass

Storage Studio

  1. Lab 1 · Write AmplificationCourse Pass
  2. Lab 2 · AnomaliesCourse Pass
  3. Lab 3 · StampedeCourse Pass
  4. Challenge · Keep Someone On CallCourse Pass

Architect’s Desk

  1. ADR-004 · The Key TypeCourse Pass
  2. When It Is Not Your ProblemCourse Pass
  3. Review This MigrationCourse Pass
  4. Data ProtectionCourse Pass
  5. AssessmentCourse Pass
  6. ReferencesCourse Pass