There is one predominant reason why databases and database technology get a spot in the conversation of “the business”: performance.
Understanding system performance and coming up with ideas for improving it typically requires a form of end-to-end understanding with different levels of detailed insight on how a query from a client application is processed by SAP HANA.
Before long, one looks into “explain plans“, “execution paths”, SQL, PlanViz diagrams, data distributions, table definitions, stack traces and even NUMA-process management on Linux/Hypervisor-level. These are a lot of concepts and layered technology and most of those concepts come with a development history of at least 30 years if not more.
This means that prior knowledge is not only implied but required to get a proper understanding of what concepts are put to work in your specific setup. Plain intuition about how the system works is not your friend here.
But where do you learn about all these things? The product documentation? A university SQL 101 class? Blog posts from strangers on the Internet? Books? Or a MOOC with a certificate?
Personally, I’m always happy to find good collections of material, maybe even curated into topics. One of those collections is The Red Book (Readings in Database Systems), which covers many important topics of Database Management Systems.
It even features a chapter “3. Techniques Everyone Should Know“ in case you really only want to have a quick overview.
I read about this awesome (and free) online book in a blog that I can only recommend:
The morning paper by Adrian Coyler.
He linked to the red book in his post (Database) Techniques Everyone Should Know.
There are also many more recent posts about database related papers like Learned Index Structures or the design and implementation of modern column-oriented database systems which explain current developments in DBMS technology that will probably end up as a feature in one of the big DBMS systems.
The great thing about Adrian’s blog is that it is a kind of Cliff’s Notes for computer science papers. One does not have to actually read the paper to get the core ideas, but Adrian always makes the paper available to read for oneself.
While I mention this blog, I like to say “Thank you!” to Mr Coyler whom I never met, but I certainly benefitted a lot from reading his outstanding blog.