MySQL Support Blogs

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MySQL Shell is a great tool for working with MySQL. One of the features that make it stand out compared to the traditional mysql command-line client is the support for JavaScript and Python in addition to SQL statements. This allows you to write code you otherwise would have had to write outside the client. I showed a simple example of this in my post about the instant ALTER TABLE feature in MySQL 8.0.12 where a Python loop was used to populate a table with 1 million rows This blog will look further into the use of Python and more specifically external modules.

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MySQL 8.0 introduced a new feature that allows you to persist configuration changes from inside MySQL. Previously you could execute SET GLOBAL to change the configuration at runtime, but you needed to update your MySQL configuration file in order to persist the change. In MySQL 8.0 you can skip the second step. This blog discuss how this works and how to backup and restore the configuration.

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When you write programs that uses a database backend, it is necessary to use a connector/API to submit the queries and retrieve the result. If you are writing Python programs that used MySQL, you can use MySQL Connector/Python – the connector developered by Oracle Corporation.

Now there is a new book dedicated to the usage of the connector: MySQL Connector/Python Revealed, which is published by Apress. It is available in a softcover edition as well as an eBook (PDF, ePub, Mobi).

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MySQL has since version 5.7 had support for progress information for some queries. As promised in my previous post, I will here discuss how you can use that to get progress information for ALTER TABLE on InnoDB tables.

Background and Setup

Progress information is implemented through the Performance Schema using the stage events. In version 8.0.12 there are currently seven stages that can provide this information for  ALTER TABLE statements on InnoDB tables. In MySQL 8, it is easy to list the stages capable of reporting progress information by using the …

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MySQL NDB Cluster has great support for online (inplace) schema changes, but it is still sometimes necessary to perform an offline (copying) ALTER TABLE. These are relatively expensive to make as the entire table is copied into a new table which eventually replace the old table.

One example where a copying ALTER TABLE is required is when upgrading from MySQL NDB Cluster 7.2 or earlier to MySQL NDB Cluster 7.3 or later. The format used for temporal columns changed between these version (corresponding to MySQL Server 5.5 to 5.6). In order to take advantage of the new temporal format, a table rebuild is required.

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The Performance Schema and sys schema are great for investigating what is going on in MySQL including investigating performance issues. In my work in MySQL Support, I have a several times heard questions whether a peak in the InnoDB Data File I/O – Latency graph in MySQL Enterprise Monitor (MEM) or some values from the corresponding tables and view in the Performance Schema and sys schema are cause for concern. This blog will discuss what these observations means and how to use them.
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With the introduction of MySQL Shell 8.0, the second major version of the new command-line tool for MySQL, a new and rich featured prompt was introduced. Unlike the prompt of the traditional mysql command-line client, it does not just say mysql> by default. Instead it comes in a colour coded spectacle.

The default prompt is great, but for one reason or another it may be that you want to change the prompt. Before getting to that, let’s take a look at the default prompt, so the starting point is clear.

The Default Prompt

An example of the default prompt can be seen in the screen shot below. As you can see, there are several parts to the prompt, each carrying its information.

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In the first delivery of this series of posts, delivered for whom who are interested to understand the basics of MySQL Cluster "by examples", I wrote about installing MySQL Cluster with a python utility called ndb_setup-py, which offers a nice web graphical interface to define and start our brand new cluster.

In this post I will share an example to do everything from scratch and manually, instead. Doing things manually is always the best recommendation to learn everything about processes life cycle through their:

• Initialization
• Administration (start/stop/reconfigure)
• Monitoring (logs/counters/status)
• Troubleshooting 

The resulting topology I'd like to setup is composed of 2 data nodes, 1 management node and …

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There are many nice changes included in the MySQL 8.0.12 release that were published a couple of days ago. One of the most exciting is the ability to make instant schema changes to tables. This blog will look into why I think that that is a stand-out change.

I will not go into details with the implementation other than noting that the new data dictionary in MySQL 8.0 has allowed for a nice implementation of the patch that was contributed by the Tencent Games DBA Team. If you are interested in learning more about the implementation, I will recommend you to read the blog by Bin Su ( …

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MySQL supports a long list of character sets, and one of the strong points are that you can use different character sets per column. This is very flexible, but which character set should you use?

If you do not want to read the whole blog the summary is: Use utf8mb4, particularly in MySQL 8.0 with one of the UCA 9.0.0 based collations.

Before I reach this conclusion, let’s start out looking at what a character set is.

What is a Character Set?

Characters are wonderful things that can take all kinds of shapes ranging from the familiar (for English speakers at least) Latin characters as those used to write this blog, over Arabic (مرحبا بالعالم) and Asian characters such as simplified Chinese …

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Today I'll share a few slides I prepared last year for a presentation delivered at Oracle Open World. This is a quick and easy hands-on lab for fresh MySQL Server DBAs. I chose 5 among the most relevant topics when tuning and scaling a MySQL Server using InnoDB tables.

In particular, in this hands-on, I will talk about:

• Scaling connections
• The threads model
• InnoDB REDO log
• InnoDB Buffer Pool
• The Execution plan

MySQL Performance Tuning 101 from Mirko Ortensi

Rate at which MySQL is delivering new features and improvements is impressive, in fact MySQL Server 8 boosts performance in many fields, especially regarding InnoDB REDO logging. Hence while the rest of …

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I have been playing with MySQL Cluster for some years now, and today I'd like to start writing a bit about it, how to set it up, configure, backup and also how to use it, as there's plenty of ways to drive operations towards the Cluster for brutal speed  and concurrency. MySQL Cluster, the open source in memory database from Oracle MySQL, is available for free from MySQL Cluster download page (Community version has GPL license).
But before starting with an overview of installation and setup, if you're new to MySQL Cluster, I would strongly recommend to have a look at this video.



What I find more interesting about MySQL Cluster, is that it is possible to have a setup running on commodity hardware (the bare laptop), as it can be configured to have a minimum footprint in terms of memory and storage requirements. About high availability, MySQL Cluster offers unique …

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A common problem when you need to set up a new database instance is to import the initial data. This can particularly be an issue, if you are converting an existing database so there is a large amount of data to import. In MySQL NDB Cluster 7.6 which just was announced as general available (GA) this week, there is a new tool to help with such imports: ndb_import.

The ndb_import utility takes a CSV file and imports the data into a table. (While C stands for comma, the tool is not limited to comma-separated files, in fact tabs is the default …

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Today – 31 March – is world backup day, so I thought I would write a little about backups in MySQL NDB Cluster.

Just because NDB Cluster offers built-in redundancy and high availability does not mean backups are not important. They are – as ever and as for everything in software. The redundancy does not protect against user errors (anyone ever executed DROP TABLE or DROP SCHEMA by accident?) neither does it protect against a natural disaster, fire, or another disaster hitting the data center. Similar with high availability.

In short, if the data is in any way remotely important for you, you ensure you have a backup. Furthermore, a backup is not worth any more than your ability to restore it. If a fire rages …

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I have had the opportunity to write a blog for Apress with a brief introduction to MySQL NDB Cluster. The blog gives a brief overview of the history and why you should consider it. The architecture is described before some key characteristics are discussed.

If you are interested, the blog can be found at https://www.apress.com/us/blog/all-blog-posts/what-is-mysql-ndb-cluster/15454530.

Happy reading.

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Sometimes it can be useful to take a step back and look at the world from a bit larger distance than usual. So in this blog, I will take a look at the high level architecture of MySQL Server.

Info …

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It is with great pleasure, I can announce that a new book dedicated to MySQL NDB Cluster has just been released. The book Pro MySQL NDB Cluster is written by my colleague Mikiya Okuno and myself and is a nearly 700 pages deep dive into the world of MySQL NDB Cluster. The book is published by Apress.

Tip: There are several ways to cluster MySQL. This book is about the product MySQL Cluster (often called MySQL NDB Cluster to clarify which cluster it is). There is also MySQL InnoDB Cluster, clustering using replication, and …

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There's a GTID_SUBTRACT function, and the manual shows how to write your own cheap GTID_UNION, but not a GTID_INTERSECT. Fortunately it's easy to write your own, as it's just subtracting twice.

CREATE FUNCTION GTID_INTERSECT(g1 TEXT, g2 TEXT)
RETURNS TEXT DETERMINISTIC
RETURN GTID_SUBTRACT(g1, GTID_SUBTRACT(g1, g2));

What use is it?

SET @slave_executed = '33738f8c-c1a5-11e7-8fc3-0a002700000f:1-681577,
421d139e-04b9-11e7-b702-0050569935dc:1-13764443,
52b9a949-d79d-11e3-80dd-0050568d193e:1-1207378:1207380-1261803:1261805-1267098:1267100-1267416:1267418-1589733';

SET @master_executed = '33738f8c-c1a5-11e7-8fc3-0a002700000f:1-730294,
421d139e-04b9-11e7-b702-0050569935dc:1-13764443,
52b9a949-d79d-11e3-80dd-0050568d193e:1-1207378:1207380-1261803:1261805-1589733';

SET @master_purged = '33738f8c-c1a5-11e7-8fc3-0a002700000f:1-681582,
421d139e-04b9-11e7-b702-0050569935dc:1-13077260,
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I have shown how to build a basic system based on a Raspberry to capture a picture through a PiCamera and share it on a web page. Now I'd like to share a bit more of my experiments by describing an end-to-end approach to detect movements in the monitored area and alert of a possible intrusion. To the purpose, I'll share what I did setup with basic pieces of code found browsing around the internet. This minimal system is made of three simple elements:

1. …

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After leaving my brand new Raspberry 3 on the shelf for months (I admit being an impulsive buyer) I decided to give it some use by setting up a surveillance system with it. Raspberry 3 has more than enough power for easy image processing, and the camera developed for its GPU has nice quality at a very accessible price.



So, in order to start with this project, I got this PiCamera v2. I got that one with InfraRed (IR) filter, as I don't plan to take nightly shots with added IR lighting …

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