Chapter 12: Named Cache
Data cache is the area of memory that Adaptive Server Enterprise uses to load pages from disk. It is also used to reduce I/O by retaining memory pages that might otherwise have to be shipped to disk. If you are using only the default data cache, the server can use this area of memory for any data that it needs to bring in off of the disk. When you create named caches, you are carving memory into tiny chunks that will be used only as you specify. If you carve your memory into 50 tiny chunks, when the server needs a large fragment of memory, it may not be available and one of the tinier chunks of memory will churn. So, only use named caches if you have analyzed and identified positive performance benefits from doing this, otherwise it can turn around and bite you. On the other hand, if access to cache is a bottleneck (which you've identified with sp_sysmon), a little time spent configuring named caches can improve performance very quickly (especially on servers using multiple engines).

Chapter 13: Remote Server Management
ASE was conceived as a database using a network and the client/server paradigm. From the beginning, ASE has used a client program that formulated and made requests of server programs over a network. A server could act as a client and make a request of another server, usually on behalf of a requesting client; the mechanism used was a Remote Procedure Call (RPC). This was a request made via the Tabular Data Stream (TDS), and when the remote server received it, passed it to its RPC handling function to process.

Chapter 14: Preventative Maintenance Regimen
Like any piece of machinery, an Adaptive Server must be properly maintained to stay in good working order. In this chapter, you'll read about common tasks that are performed to maintain the server. The different types of maintenance will be described in levels based on scope. You will learn that especially in production systems, system health is vital to keeping the servers operational. To verify the status of the system, it's important to run basic maintenance routines to ensure that no problems have begun to develop. These tasks, depending on the size of the environment, can vary from just a few steps to complex, involved routines. They can take a few minutes each day or they can potentially take over an administrator's time. Because of this and the criticality of the tasks, it's also recommended that they be automated to whatever extent possible. Develop scripts to perform some of these tasks and page or notify administrators when a problem appears, or invest in some third-party tools that automate and perform some of these tasks.

Chapter 15: Troubleshooting
This chapter exists to steer you in the right direction in case of trouble. By the time you've reached this chapter, you should be able to handle any problem that comes up that doesn't need direct aid from Sybase technical support. So, based on some typical problems that you as a DBA need to solve, where would you look first? This chapter is useful for review; you can play some kind of quiz in which a problem is described and you can read what the proper solution is. It's very interesting. I have to say that I didn't answer all of them correctly (though I am a developer and not an ASE administrator).

Chapter 16: Tools
In addition to supporting the SQL language (with extensions), ASE makes use of a number of utilities to assist in administration. Each of these tools has a particular purpose, and each is run not from within an ASE user connection, but from the operating system prompt (or graphical desktop). In addition to the basic query editor isql (and its Java equivalent, jisql), provided tools include:

• BCP (Bulk Copy Program): Allows for OS flat files to be directly loaded into tables, or for tables (or views) to be copied to a flat file. Works in fast or slow modes.
• Defncopy: Creates script files for certain database objects directly from system table information; may also be used to read script files and quickly create objects.
• Optdiag: Reads the contents of sysstatistics and systabstats and displays the results in a formatted fashion. May be used to characterize the structure of tables and the distribution of data in columns; may also be used to manually update statistics or to load simulated statistics for query performance analysis.
• Sybase Central: Plug-in-based GUI tool for server administration; may be used to examine the structure of items in the server or to create new structures via step-by-step "wizards."

Conclusion
This book is an interesting addition to the available online books from Sybase. It describes the necessary tasks for a database administrator in a more chronological order than the manuals. In fact the book does cover database administration of Sybase very well. I have also found it an excellent reference manual as well as a teaching tool, having discovered some things about ASE that I was not aware of and that might be buried very deep within the documentation. While online manuals are good, there's nothing better than having a book in front of you to read from. So if you have to administrate an ASE database and you're looking for a book, you won't make a mistake if you buy it. I wish you a happy time with Sybase ASE.

SIDEBAR
Administrator's Guide to Sybase ASE 12.5
Paperback: 476 pages
Publisher: Wordware Publishing, Inc.
ISBN: 1556223072
Authors: Jeffrey Garbus, Alvin Chang, Gary Tyrrel and Penny Garbus
Contributing Authors: Brian Davignon, Rick Kinnaird, Christine Lindsay, Jim Nimmo, Sheri Page, and Brian Taylor