Preface

The computing world is changing fast. In this fast-moving world, the only way to survive is to deliver data quickly. We are moving towards a world in which even a second counts and can affect user behavior drastically. That is why the whole NoSQL movement started. NoSQL data stores were able to provide faster access by sacrificing some of the advantages that traditional databases offer. Redis is one of the fastest data stores in the market and is being used by many giants in the web industry.

It is important for software professionals to keep up-to-date with the latest technology offerings and tools in the market, which is critical to gain advantage in business. The main goal of this book is to introduce you to Redis. The book helps you to understand the various configurations and options available in Redis, which could ease your efforts of adding Redis to your application stack.

What this book covers

Choosing your data store (Simple) shows what data store to select from top names like Cassandra, MongoDB, Riak, CouchBase, MemCached, and others, based on your application requirements.

Installing Redis (Simple) focuses on a step-by-step installation procedure of Redis in Linux systems, with commands to test the installation.

Configuring and tuning Redis (Intermediate) helps you understand all configurations available in Redis and how to effectively configure the server to make the most out of it.

Implementing persistence in Redis (Intermediate) defines all the options available in Redis to enable data persistence. You can choose the options based on the data durability you prefer.

Detecting performance bottlenecks (Intermediate) helps you understand the various bottlenecks in Redis and how effectively you can mitigate them to make the most out of your installation.

Performing high-volume writes (Advanced) tells you about high-volume writes into Redis. It helps you to load a large amount of data in very little time, either through pipelining or using the Redis protocol.

Leveraging data types (Simple) helps you understand the most important feature in Redis—data types. This recipe helps you understand the data types and how to use them to create even more complex data types.

Optimizing memory (Intermediate) helps you reach the goal of optimizing the memory usage of this in-memory data store. It explains presharding and how to use the auto-expiry feature in Redis with a real-life example.

Using transactions and Pub/Sub (Advanced) covers one of the advanced features in Redis, which makes it an ideal broadcast for servers. This also helps you understand transactions and how to use Publish/Subscribe in Redis with a real-life example of a messaging system.

Troubleshooting and monitoring (Intermediate) tells you about debugging and monitoring the installation using the Slow log or monitor command in Redis. This recipe also explains how to use the Redis watchdog to diagnose software bugs.

Using languages and drivers (Simple) helps you choose a driver library to communicate with Redis using your favorite language.

What you need for this book

In order to make your learning more efficient, you need a computer with any flavor of Linux, preferably Ubuntu or Debian, installed. Redis is not production-ready in Windows, but you can check the Installing Redis (Simple) recipe for ports of Redis in Windows.

Also, you need an Internet connection to the machine to download the latest source of Redis from the repository. You also need a text editor you are comfortable with in order to edit the Redis configuration files.

Who this book is for

This book is for developers and/or system administrators who are already proficient in programming and traditional database systems and want to learn about Redis for its simplicity and fast performance. If you are a developer, it is also expected that you have proficiency in at least one programming language through which you want to communicate with Redis.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows:

"One of the limits you might want to set is maxclients, which controls how many clients can connect to the server simultaneously."

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

$<numberofbytesofargumentN>CRLF
<argumentdata>CRLF

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "To solve this particular problem, Redis provides another way of persistence, Append-only file (AOF)".

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

Reader feedback

Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book—what you liked or may have disliked. Reader feedback is important for us to develop titles that you really get the most out of.

To send us general feedback, simply send an e-mail to <[e-mail]>, and mention the book title via the subject of your message.

If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide on www.packtpub.com/authors.

Customer support

Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.

Downloading the example code

You can download the example code files for all Packt books you have purchased from your account at http://www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.

Errata

Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in the text or the code—we would be grateful if you would report this to us. By doing so, you can save other readers from frustration and help us improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/submit-errata, selecting your book, clicking on the erratasubmissionform link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata will be uploaded on our website, or added to any list of existing errata, under the Errata section of that title. Any existing errata can be viewed by selecting your title from http://www.packtpub.com/support.

Piracy

Piracy of copyright material on the Internet is an ongoing problem across all media. At Packt, we take the protection of our copyright and licenses very seriously. If you come across any illegal copies of our works, in any form, on the Internet, please provide us with the location address or website name immediately so that we can pursue a remedy.

Please contact us at <[e-mail]> with a link to the suspected pirated material.

We appreciate your help in protecting our authors, and our ability to bring you valuable content.

Questions

You can contact us at <[e-mail]> if you are having a problem with any aspect of the book, and we will do our best to address it.