Preventing MySQL Emergencies

Preventing downtime-causing emergencies in MySQL can be difficult
because they are caused by complex combinations of several things going
wrong. Efforts to be proactive may be sincere, but without knowledge of
the causes of emergencies, they often fail to prevent further
problems. This white paper explains dozens of ways that real
emergencies could have been prevented in production systems, and
suggests specific actions to accomplish these. It grew from a study of
hundreds of downtime-causing emergencies for Percona's customers, and
is the companion to an article in the Q1 2011 issue of IOUG's
SELECT magazine, which presents analysis of the causes and
natures of the incidents. Each recommendation in this paper could have
prevented at least one incidence of production downtime. The paper
includes checklists that can be used to help perform and document the
measures discussed.