A client retrieves data from tables or changes data in tables by sending requests to the server in the form of SQL statements. The server executes each statement using a two-tier processing model: • The upper tier includes the SQL parser and optimizer. • The lower tier comprises a set of storage engines. For the most part, the SQL tier is free of dependencies on which the storage engine manages any given table. This means that clients normally need not be concerned about which engines are involved in processing SQL statements, and can access and manipulate tables using statements that are the same no matter which engine manages them. Exceptions to this engine-independence of SQL statements include the following: • CREATE TABLE has an ENGINE option that enables you to specify which storage engine to use on a per-table basis. ALTER TABLE has an ENGINE option that enables you to convert a table to use a different storage engine. • Some index types ar
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