Preface
Table of Contents
This book is the official documentation of Postgres Pro Shardman. It has been written by the Postgres Pro Shardman developers, PostgreSQL community, and other volunteers in parallel to the development of the PostgreSQL and Postgres Pro software. It describes all the functionality that the current version of Postgres Pro officially supports.
The Postgres Pro Shardman DBMS is a stand-alone DBMS, which inherits a number of features from Postgres Pro Enterprise.
The Postgres Pro Shardman documentation can also be considered stand-alone documentation, partly inherited from the Postgres Pro Enterprise documentation.
All Postgres Pro Enterprise object types are supported by Postgres Pro Shardman if not stated otherwise. Also, new Postgres Pro Shardman-specific object types are added (sharded tables, global sequences, etc).
A number of Postgres Pro Enterprise features have been inherited by Postgres Pro Shardman. These features can be applied to all Postgres Pro Shardman object types, or work with limitations, or be disabled, which is explicitly highlighted in documentation.
To make the large amount of information about Postgres Pro manageable, this book has been organized in several parts. Each part is targeted at a different class of users, or at users in different stages of their Postgres Pro experience:
Part I is an informal introduction for new users.
Part II documents the SQL query language environment, including data types and functions, as well as user-level performance tuning and Postgres Pro Shardman and Postgres Pro Enterprise differences. Every Postgres Pro user should read this.
Part III describes the installation and administration of the server. Everyone who runs a Postgres Pro server, be it for private use or for others, should read this part.
Part IV describes the programming interfaces for Postgres Pro client programs.
Part V contains information for advanced users about the extensibility capabilities of the server.
Part VI contains reference information about SQL commands, client and server programs. This part supports the other parts with structured information sorted by command or program.
Part VII contains assorted information that might be of use to developers.