MySQL Developer News (2006)

MySQL Administrator and Migration Toolkit bug finding contest results

21 December 2006 — New MySQL Administrator and Migration Toolkit released - Find a bug and win an iPod!

MySQL’s Commitment to Debian

14 December 2006 — MySQL AB apologizes for any miscommunication that may have implied that the MySQL database does not run on the popular Debian Linux operating system, or that the company does not offer technical support for MySQL Enterprise subscribers using Debian. We have a strong commitment to Debian and other forms of Linux – for both open source community developers and corporate enterprises.

Automating MySQL Best Practices Management

11 December 2006 — One thing I learned fairly early in my DBA career was that if I was ever going to excel in managing the databases under my care, I needed to do one thing: smartly automate as much of my job as I could. This became particularly important in my last full-time DBA spot where one other guy and I had responsibility for about 120 Oracle, SQL Server, and DB2 databases. A lot of these databases ran critical applications with lots of users, so we were rarely bored at work. To keep our heads above water, we needed to do something to ensure we always had our finger on the pulse of all our servers, plus we needed to make sure that any performance issue was recognized as early as possible.

Interview with Paddy Sreenivasan from Zmanda

17 November 2006 — Zmanda specializes in backup and recovery solutions. First they gave the world Amanda, and now they've given MySQL users a new reason to rejoice with the launch of Zmanda Recovery Manager (ZRM) for MySQL. I recently got to speak to Paddy Sreenivasan, the Vice President of Engineering and co-founder of Zmanda Inc., amidst his busy schedule, about what they do and why MySQL users should be jumping towards ZRM for MySQL for all their backup & recovery needs.

Beginning MYSQL 5 with Visual Studio.NET 2005

16 November 2006 — This tutorial gives you a practical introduction to MySQL 5 Application Development using the MYSQL Connector for .NET with Microsoft Visual Studio.NET 2005 and how to build a simple Database Application using VC# and MySQL 5.

MySQL Scale-Out With Application Partitioning

8 November 2006 — Introduction: Eventually every database system hit its limits. Especially on the Internet, where you have millions of users which theoretically access your database simultaneously, eventually your IO system will be a bottleneck. Conventional solutions: In general, as a first step, MySQL Replication is used to scale-out in such a situation. MySQL Replication scales very well when you have a high read/write (r/w) ratio. The higher the better. But also such a MySQL Replication system hits its limits when you have a huge amount of (write) access. Because database systems have random disk access, it's not the throughput of your IO system that's relevant but the IO per second (random seek). You can scale this in a very limited way by adding more disks to your IO system, but here too you eventually hit a limit (price).

MySQL Enterprise -- Double your DBA Staff without Adding Headcount

17 October 2006 — MySQL AB today announced ‘MySQL Enterprise’, a new version of its flagship commercial subscription service that includes new automated, proactive technology to help corporate users monitor and tune their production MySQL database systems.

Proposals for the 2007 MySQL Conference & Expo Now Being Accepted

19 September 2006 — The Call for Participation for the 2007 MySQL Conference & Expo has just opened: an invitation for database experts and enthusiasts to share their knowledge of MySQL with the global open source community. The theme for the 2007 conference is "Scale to New Heights with MySQL." This annual event brings nearly 2,000 MySQL developers, DBAs, users, and partners together in Santa Clara, California. The Call for Participation ends November 7, 2006; the conference takes place April 23-26, 2007.

Interview with Brian Moon, from the Phorum project

11 September 2006 — If you've spent any amount of time on the forums, you probably will have recognized Brian among the forum users who most frequently answer posts -- particularly SQL and performance-related questions. Some time ago, I had a chance to ask Brian a little bit about his experience writing Phorum, about his thoughts on open source and MySQL in particular, and on his vision for Phorum in the future...

Interview with Rohit Nadhani, Co-founder of Webyog

8 September 2006 — Webyog is the company behind the popular SQLyog GUI tool for managing and developing MySQL databases. They have a great history of partnership with MySQL and, recently, decided to open source part of their product line. I had a chance to interview Rohit Nadhani, co-founder of Webyog, about their decision to move to open source, the changes they've made to the code as a result of that move, and various other things.

Find a GUI Bug, Win an iPod!

7 September 2006 — New MySQL Administrator and Migration Toolkit released - Find a bug and win an iPod!

Guy Kawasaki: Ten Questions with Marten Mickos

25 August 2006 — Guy Kawasaki interviews Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL

Tuning MySQL for eZ publish

24 August 2006 — This article explains how to tune a MySQL database for use with eZ publish. MySQL is a database engine used by eZ publish to store content. While other databases are supported by eZ publish (such as PostgreSQL and Oracle), for performance reasons we recommend MySQL. This article has suggestions for optimizing for either read or write operations, and also discusses some other optimization techniques such as DNS and filesystem configuration.

MySQL to Certify to the Linux Standard Base

14 August 2006 — The Free Standards Group (FSG), a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing and promoting open source software standards, today announced that two of the most important and widely-used applications on Linux: RealPlayer and the MySQL database, are certifying to the Linux Standard Base. The result will be decreased build, porting and support efforts for the software developers and increased choice for end users. For the first time, a single RealPlayer or MySQL package will run on the many LSB-certified Linux distributions including Red Hat, Novell, Ubuntu, Red Flag and many others.

MySQL 5.1 New Features: MySQL Partitions

8 August 2006 — Partitioning is a way of pre-organizing table storage. You can say "some of the table's rows will go here, some will go there, still others will go to to still other places". Often, depending on the storage engine, the effect is to spread the table's rows over different files or even different disks.

Interview with Stephan Uhrenbacher, Managing Director of Qype GmbH

4 August 2006 — Stephan Uhrenbacher is the Managing Director of Qype GmbH, the company behind the Qype.com web site, which allows users to recommend places in Germany and has developed into one of Germany’s most interesting web 2.0 applications.

Partitioning with Dates in MySQL 5.1

20 July 2006 — Many of you have responded very positively on the first and second partitioning articles that I wrote some time back. It’s clear that a lot of you are excited about the upcoming MySQL 5.1 release, and in particular, the new data partitioning feature that’s being offered. That’s no surprise because, as we covered in the previous two articles, partitioning has some excellent performance and management benefits for anyone who’s building data warehouses or other large databases with MySQL.

MySQL Cluster NDB API Documentation

18 July 2006 — The new MySQL Cluster NDB API Documentation is now available.

Enforcing Foreign Keys Programmatically in MySQL

10 July 2006 — In this article we explore how to program foreign keys into a MySQL Server. This is important when your application requires referential integrity and the storage engine you’d like to use, as in the case of MyISAM or NDB (Cluster), does not support this functionality natively. We should note that InnoDB and the upcoming code-named “Falcon” storage engine, both support foreign keys.

MySQL Cluster 5.0 ALTER TABLE In-Depth

6 July 2006 — In this Developers Zone article we take an in-depth look at how the ALTER TABLE command is implemented in MySQL Cluster 5.0.

German translation of MySQL 5.1 manual online

7 June 2006 — The German translation of the MySQL 5.1 Reference Manual is complete.

MaxDB Synchronization at United Drugs' Annual Convention

3 June 2006 — This document is a user report on the MaxDB Synchronization Manager. The article describes the use of the MaxDB Synchronization Manager during United Drugs Annual Convention from a technical standpoint. It gives an example of the magnitude of possible application of the MaxDB Synchronization Manager. Written for developers, the user report contains warnings on common pitfalls and gives hints how to circumvent the problems.

Interview with Paul McCullagh, developer of the PrimeBase XT Storage Engine

2 June 2006 — The PrimeBase XT Storage Engine (PBXT) is a new transactional database engine for MySQL. It has been designed for modern, web-based, high concurrency environments. In May 2006, I had the opportunity to meet with Paul McCullagh, the head developer of PBXT for lunch at the Hamburg offices of Snap Innovation GmbH, the company behind PrimeBase. It was co-founded by Paul in February 1996 and is focussed on the development and sales of client/server database technology, specializing in inter- and intranet systems.

MaxDB series: transactions

31 May 2006 — In this issue of the MaxDB series we will introduce you to some selected aspects of transactions. The topic of transactions seems pretty boring. But in fact it depends very much on the point of view you take. We have tried to put a light on the subject that shows some rather advanced aspects of transactions which are a little less often discussed in database classes.

My Dinner with Monty

31 May 2006 — This interview took place with Monty Widenius, co-founder of MySQL, at his house outside of Helsinki, Finland. In Monty’s usual understated Finnish style, we talked about MySQL 5.0, coding styles and cooking.

MySQL Clustering: Chapter 5 Performance

24 May 2006 — One of the main reasons to use a MySQL Cluster is the ability to get better performance and scalability compared to using a database that is confined to a single host. This chapter discusses many of the concepts related to performance and scalability, as well as how to ensure that you get the maximum performance from your MySQL Cluster setup.

MySQL 5.0 - Ready for Prime Time Business Intelligence with Pentaho

23 May 2006 — Business intelligence is the key to fact-based decision making in the intelligent enterprise. Techniques and tools are designed to unlock knowledge from data.

More on MySQL 5.1 Partitioning

23 May 2006 — In my first article on partitioning, I demonstrated that you can get some pretty impressive performance benefits when you properly design partitioned tables to match the SQL queries that are routinely shot across the bow of your database server. I’d now like to continue in that vein and show you how easy and efficient partitioning is in terms of managing how partitions are created and removed within tables.

MySQL Pluggable Storage Engine Architecture

9 May 2006 — MySQL's unique Pluggable Storage Engine Architecture gives users the flexibility to choose from a potfolio of purpose-built storage engines that are optimized for specific application domains - OLTP, Read-Intensive Web Scale-out, High-Availability Clustering, Data Archiving, Data Warehousing, and more.

A Look at the MySQL CSV Storage Engine

5 May 2006 — In MySQL 5.1, a new engine has been provided that assists with the management and use of delimited data found in common flat files. Robin Schumacher takes a quick look at this new engine, along with the features and benefits it provides users of MySQL.

MySQL Launches MySQL Forge Web Site & Announces Support for Ubuntu

27 April 2006 — MySQL today introduced MySQL Forge a new online resource for all MySQL users and developers to communicate, collaborate and share MySQL code and applications. The company also announced new support for Ubuntu Linux. In a keynote address today at the MySQL Users Conference 2006, Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of the Ubuntu project, outlined the new partnership and technology collaboration between Ubuntu and MySQL.

Advanced MySQL Replication Techniques

24 April 2006 — You may know about the MySQL Cluster, which is a complex architecture to achieve high availability and performance. One of the advantages of MySQL Cluster is that each node is a peer to the others, whereas in a normal replicating system you have a master and many slaves, and applications must be careful to write only to the master. In this article, Giuseppe Maxia, CTO of Stardata IT, provides unique insight into circular replication (multi-master replication) with failover.

MySQL Announces Annual Community, Partner & Application Awards

23 April 2006 — In their morning keynote presentation at the MySQL Users Conference, company founders Monty Widenius and David Axmark announced the winners of the 2006 MySQL Community Awards.

MySQL 5.1 New Features: MySQL Events

13 April 2006 — Andrey Hristov added "Events" for MySQL version 5.1 when he was working on his master's thesis for the University of Applied Sciences in Stuttgart. We liked the feature a lot, and now Andrey works for MySQL. An inspiring story, eh? And now MySQL 5.1 is getting stabler, it's "beta" instead of "alpha". So we can try some real work with this Events feature.

The MaxDB series on PlanetMySQL

31 March 2006 — MySQL has started a MaxDB series on its corporate blog aggregator. Since the beginning of Februar the MaxDB team tries to write one MaxDB article per week for you. The articles get published on our english language web site http://www.planetmysql.org. All articles together will make a complete MaxDB class. The class describes the use of MaxDB as a stand-alone enterprise database. We do not discuss the use of MaxDB with SAP applications.

MySQL Joins the Eclipse Foundation

20 March 2006 — MySQL AB today announced it has joined the Eclipse Foundation as an Add-In Provider. The company plans to contribute work to the Eclipse Data Tools Platform project and collaborate with Zend Technologies and others on the Eclipse PHP IDE project. The announcement was made in advance of the EclipseCon 2006 conference, being held in Santa Clara, California this week.

Open, but not as Usual

16 March 2006 — As “open-source” models move beyond software into other businesses, their limitations are becoming apparent

Interview with Ian Wilkes, Director of Operations at Linden Lab

3 March 2006 — Linden Lab is the company behind the virtual world simulation Second Life (SL) in wich users (the residents) can freely roam around and actively participate in the creation and development of the virtual world and their own appearance (their avatars). To facilitate this, Second Life provides powerful in-world 3D construction tools as well as a special scripting language, LSL. Second Life also provides its own economy and currency (Linden Dollars), that residents can use to purchase goods and objects that other residents created. Interestingly, it’s even possible to exchange Linden Dollars into US dollars and vice versa.

Improving Database Performance with Partitioning

22 February 2006 — A few years ago, I wrote an article entitled "The Foundation of Excellent Performance" (still available at http://www.tdan.com/i016fe03.htm) where I argued against the notion that SQL code was the number one contributor to performance in a database-driven system. Instead, I stated in the article that I firmly believed how good physical database design was far and away the leading component of superior database performance. In addition, I showed that Oracle's own research illustrated how poor design was the main culprit behind database downtime (planned or unplanned). In the years since then, I've not changed my stance and still think that any DBA who wants a high-performance database has got to invest in intelligent and savvy physical design to produce the kind of response times that make end users smile instead of scream.

Interview with David Heinemeier Hansson from Ruby on Rails

11 February 2006 — The Ruby scripting language was first published in 1995, and has a very dedicated and active community of users around it. And with the release of the Ruby on Rails web framework in July 2004, Ruby has emerged as a serious alternative to PHP and Java for developing database-driven web sites. MySQL is one of the most popular choices as a database backend for Ruby on Rails applications and we support the Rails community with a dedicated forum about MySQL and Rails.

Accessing Distributed Data with the Federated Storage Engine

9 February 2006 — It's no secret that corporations are swimming in more data than ever before. IDC has recently pegged data growth at 48% a year, which means that corporate data nearly doubles every two years at many companies. In addition, purchased applications and custom built systems continue to bring in new databases that require attention, and business intelligence remains a red-hot area for modern enterprises with many companies building analytic data warehouses or data marts that continually feed information to key decision makers.

Interview with Kai 'Oswald' Seidler from the XAMPP project

17 January 2006 — I recently had the pleasure to get in touch with Kai "Oswald" Seidler from the Apache Friends team. He is one of the people behind 'XAMPP', an easy to install software distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl which is available for Linux and Windows. The project also added support for Mac OS X and Solaris recently, but these ports is still in an early beta stage.

New Event Feature in MySQL 5.1.6

13 January 2006 — In this article, I'll give a preliminary description of a new MySQL feature for scheduling and executing tasks. In version 5.1.6, MySQL has added support for events. That is, you can now say: "I want the MySQL server to execute this SQL statement every day at 9:30am, until the end of the year" -- or anything similar that involves any number of SQL statements, and a schedule.

MySQL 5.1's new XML Functions

12 January 2006 — MySQL version 5.1.5 has functions for searching and changing XML documents. This article has examples.

MySQL 5.0 Certification Exams

3 January 2006 — MySQLs Certification Manager outlines the upcoming changes in the MySQL certification program, and why those changes were made.