The Engine Crew Monographs

Engine Crew Monographs are technical articles that discuss Progress products, explain how they function, and tell you how to use them more effectively. Subject matter is primarily related to the Progress Database, Networking, and Servers. The topics presented are thought to be of interest to Progress customers. The editor imagines that there is interest in a topic when many people ask questions about it.

If you want to write about a topic or you want to suggest a topic that ought to be discussed, or you want to point out errors or omissions, please send mail to gus@progress.com

Warning: Most of these articles are highly technical and dull as dirt. You might fall asleep, fall out of your chair, and bump your head. Please fasten your seat belt before reading so you don't injure yourself.

Currently available monographs are briefly described below. If you want to read one, click on its title to follow the link.

You may quote freely from these articles provided that you attribute the source and original author properly.

No. 1: 4GL Query Concepts and Usage - This document describes the functionality and behavior of PROGRESS 4gl queries. By understanding how queries work, you can make more effective use of them in your applications.

No. 2: Space: The Final Frontier - How the Progress database manager allocates and manages the disk space used to hold the various kinds of objects (tables, indexes, sequences, views, etc.) that can be stored in a database.

No. 3: Progress RDBMS Performance Tuning Tips - Performance tuning is an iterative process for getting the most out of a computer system by making the best use of its various resources. This guide presents a few tips to help you achieve good Progress database performance on multi-user shared-memory systems, such as Unix, VMS, and Windows NT.

No. 4: Transaction Logging Concepts - Learn how the Progress database manager uses transaction logging to enhance database reliability and performance. By being familiar with these subjects you will be better equipped to take full advantage of the Progress RDBMS. The major topics covered include a short review of the transaction concept, general logging concepts, normal and recovery processing, checkpoints, and transaction log space allocation.

No 5: What's New in Version 8.2A? - Short descriptions of new and enhanced Progress RDBMS and Server features included in Version 8.2A, released on May 30, 1997.

No. 6: Cache My Drift? - A short and to the point discussion of cache memories in RAID and other exotic disk storage subsystems.

No. 7: Page Writers - What page writers do and why they are A Good Thing (tm).

No. 8: Waiting For The Electrician, Or Someone Like Him - Have you ever wondered what the letters BKEX displayed in the "Wait" column in the Progress Monitor mean? Find the answer here.

No. 9: How To Catch An Elephant - The hunting of elephants has a long history. Over the years, a large number of techniques of varying efficacy have been developed. This article describes several of these techniques.

No. 10: Progress In The Raw - Version 8.2A of Progress adds the capability for storing database extents on raw devices on Unix systems. A database can be stored in a mix of raw devices and files. Although raw devices afford some advantages, they also have some disadvantages. Find out what they are.

No. 11: Summertime in the Database - What happens when the system clock changes by unusual amounts, such as in the fall when summertime ends?

No. 12: Raiders of The Lost Disk - Comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of the various RAID configurations. Recommendations for Progress database installations.

No. 13: This space for rent.

No. 14: Watch this space

No. 15: Selection - Explains how the 4GL compiler analyzes queries and decides what indexes to use to retrieve the data requested in a query. Many examples.

No. 16: What's new in 8.3A? - Coming soon

No. 17: Metadata - This article contains a fairly complete description of the metadata tables for Progress Version 8 and explains how they work together. It also shows how you can use the 4GL to examine the schema tables. Much more information than you need to know.