MySQL Newsletter November 2006

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Articles in this newsletter:

Training, Consulting, & Certification

Highlights

Slashdot Interview: MySQL CEO Mårten Mickos Answers Your Questions

MySQL CEO Mårten Mickos is asked how to make money with a company based on free software. Mårten answers. He even added (and answered) a question he wished had been asked, but wasn't.

Read the interview »

Other interviews with Marten Mickos »

TCO Savings Calculator: Calculate Your TCO Savings

MySQL is proven to reduce database licensing costs by over 90%. The new TCO Savings Calculator enables you to:

Define your system configuration such as Database Servers, CPUs, and CPU Cores
Choose the Database products to compare including Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and IBM DB2.
Select the support term

Calculate Your TCO Saving »

White Paper: Guide to MySQL 5.1 Partitioning

Partitioning is a physical database design technique that many data modelers and DBAs are quite familiar with. Partitioning allows large objects within a database to be split into small, more manageable pieces. There are a number of benefits that come with partitioning. Learn more about how MySQL 5.1 supports all the major forms of partitioning; Range, Hash, Key, List and Composite.

Download the White Paper » (http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/white-papers/mysql_wp_partitioning.php)

Business White Paper: MySQL Network Monitoring and Advisory Service

MySQL Enterprise provides the MySQL Network Monitoring and Advisory Service. This paper explores the MySQL Network Monitoring and Advisory Service in detail and explains how it can be leveraged as a "Virtual MySQL DBA" assistant to help over-extended DBAs proactively manage more MySQL servers with less time and effort.

Read the White Paper » (http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/white-papers/mysql_wp_monitoring_advisory.php)

MySQL Lifecycle Policy

The MySQL Lifecycle Policy provides specific guidelines and timeframes for Production Support and Product End-of-Life (EOL). The policy is designed to provide customers with predictable and flexible rules for planning purposes. The policy provides defined support timeframes and extension options which allow customers to operate under a supported version of the server for multiple years and to plan upgrade paths.

Read the End of Life Policy » (http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/lifecycle/)

MySQL is Hiring

Apply today to join one of the largest and fastest growing open source companies! MySQL is a global organization with over 300 employees in 25 countries. We have openings for the following positions:

QA Engineer
Software Developer
Senior Software Developer - Storage Engine
Senior Software Developer - MySQL Cluster
Senior Software Developer - MySQL Server
Senior Instructor
Senior Consultant

Apply Now » (http://www.mysql.com/jobs/)

New Product Releases

New Release of MySQL 5.1.12 (Beta)

We are proud to present to you the MySQL Server 5.1.12 Beta Release. Changes include:

The general query log and slow query logs now can be enabled or disabled at runtime with the general_log and slow_query_log system variables, and the name of the log files can be changed by setting the general_log_file and slow_query_log_file system variables. See Section 5.12.3, "The General Query Log," and Section 5.12.5, "The Slow Query Log.
mysqldump now has a --flush-privileges option. It causes mysqldump to emit a FLUSH PRIVILEGES statement after dumping the mysql database. This option should be used any time the dump contains the mysql database and any other database that depends on the data in the mysql database for proper restoration.

For the complete list of changes visit »

Download Now »

New Release of MySQL Connector/ODBC 5.0.7 (Beta)

MySQL Connector/ODBC 5.0 is meant to be used with MySQL-5.0 and newer, as it relies on information available in INFORMATION_SCHEMA when fulfilling requests for metadata. You no longer need to have Connector/ODBC 3.51 installed (however this release can co-exist with a 3.51 installation), as this version now uses its own setup library unlike prior ALPHA releases. Changes include:

Improved trace/log
Added support for SQLStatistics to MYODBCShell
SQLBindParameter now handles SQL_C_DEFAULT

For the complete list of changes visit »

Download Now »

New Release of MySQL Connector/Net 5.0.2 (Beta)

MySQL Connector/Net is an all-managed ADO.Net provider for MySQL. This beta includes the following changes:

Increased speed of MySqlParameterCollection.IndexOf(string) orders of magnitude (parameter name lookups are now strict on use of parameter marker)
Improved character set mappings
Turned MySqlPoolManager into a static class and added a static ctor to avoid any race conditions related to initializing the hashtable.

For the complete list of changes, visit »

Download Now »

Hints & Tips

White Paper: MySQL Enterprise

MySQL is the leading open source database solution used today to power modern enterprise applications. MySQL Enterprise is a combination of 3 specific components:

The MySQL Enterprise Server
The MySQL Monitoring and Advisor Services - provide developers,
MySQL Production Support

This paper explores the MySQL Enterprise offering in more detail and explains why it's never been easier or smarter to use MySQL for all types of enterprise-class data management needs.

Download the White Paper (English) » (http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/white-papers/mysql_wp_mysql-enterprise.php)

Download the White Paper (French) » (http://www.mysql.fr/why-mysql/white-papers/mysql_wp_mysql-enterprise.php)

Download the White Paper (German) » (http://www.mysql.de/why-mysql/white-papers/mysql_wp_mysql-enterprise.php)

Download the White Paper (Italian) »

Documentation: New FAQ in MySQL 5.0 and 5.1 Manuals

The FAQ answers frequently asked questions in the following areas:

Storage Engines
Server SQL Mode
Stored Procedures
Triggers
Views
INFORMATION_SCHEMA
Migration
Security
MySQL Cluster
MySQL Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Character Sets
Connectors & APIs

Frequently Asked Questions About MySQL 5.1 »

Frequently Asked Questions About MySQL 5.0 »

Documentation: MySQL Documentation Now Available in RPM Format

If you're using RPM files to install the MySQL server, clients, and other components, we have good news for you: The MySQL Reference Manual is available in RPM format.

We've packaged HTML (one page per chapter) and PDF (US Letter and A4) into separate RPM files. In other words, for each version of the MySQL Manual (4.1, 5.0, and 5.1) there are two RPM files, like this:

mysql-refman-5.0-en-html-chapter-1-20061109.noarch.rpm
mysql-refman-5.0-en-pdf-1-20061109.noarch.rpm

Download the RPM Files »

Documentation: MySQL Tools Support Multiple Languages

MySQL Administrator and MySQL Query Browser support multiple languages.

MySQL Administrator: German, Greek, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese
MySQL Query Browser: German, Greek, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese

Read the Documentation »

Native InfiniBand Support for MySQL Cluster

Chemnitz University of Technology has implemented a MySQL Cluster Transporter for native InfiniBand to provide low latency and high bandwidth. Here you can see some results from the testReadPerf Benchmark included in MySQL.

Read the Benchmarks »

Download the InfiniBand Transporter file »

PlanetMySQL Blog: MySQL Winter of Code

Kaj Arnö

Through MySQL Winter of Code, we want to encourage contributions to MySQL in all areas of the server. connectors and GUI tools. There are three requirements for getting a Winter of Code grant.

Read the PlanetMySQL Blog »

PlanetMySQL Blog: MySQL Native Driver for PHP

Ulf Wendel

Kaj Arnö announced the plan to develop a native driver for PHP. As Kaj explained, the new development will be licensed under the terms of the PHP license and donated to the PHP Group to solve any license issues.

Read the PlanetMySQL Blog »

PlanetMySQL Blog: Using CHAR/VARCHAR data types in NDBAPI

Johan Andersson

Many people have questions about using the string data types (char/varchar) from the NDBAPI. Here I explain how you can use them.

Read the PlanetMySQL Blog »

PlanetMySQL Blog: Contributing to MySQL QA - Ideas wanted

Giuseppe Maxia

MySQL has recently started a campaign of open contribution, inviting the community to participate to the MySQL project in many ways.

Read the PlanetMySQL Blog Post »

PlanetMySQL Blog: Option and Variable Matrix

Sheeri Kritzer

SHOW STATUS and SHOW VARIABLES are very useful features for analyzing server performance, server setup and general debugging. Many times, there are items applicable to a scenario in both lists. Further, sometimes it's difficult to know whether an option or variable can be changed on the commandline or in an option file.

Read the Blog »

PlanetMySQL Blog: Making Connections more Manageable

Jeremy Cole

This patch adds a new SET CONNECTION STATUS status command, which allows each session to set a status which will be shown in a new Status column in SHOW FULL PROCESSLIST.

Read the PlanetMySQL Blog post »

PlanetMySQL Blog: The PBXT Pluggable Storage Engine

Paul McCullagh

These are interesting times because we are seeing the future of storage engines in MySQL. The PBXT 0.9.73 release demonstrates the ease with which externally built storage engines can be combined with MySQL in the future. And, as I have mentioned before, PrimeBase XT is the first engine to take full advantage of this new feature in MySQL.

Read the PlanetMySQL Blog post »

PlanetMySQL Blog: Quick and Dirty MySQL Backup

Jeff Hunter

Until recently, the MySQL databases I work with contain data that can be retrieved from other sources. Most of the data is either batched in from flat files or another database. It would be inconvenient to reload a couple months worth of data, but since these databases are not mission critical, the business could operate without them for a couple days. Lately, we've been implementing some semi-critical systems that rely on a somewhat expedient recovery.

Read the PlanetMySQL Blog post »

PlanetMySQL Blog: MySQL Replibeertion at MySQL Camp (Google HQ)

Ronald Bradford

MySQL just completed MySQL Camp which was held at the Google Headquarters in California. MySQL Replibeertion was the last scheduled session on Day 2, but not withstanding there was free beer (a lot of), there was a serious side with a Replication Discussion.

Read the PlanetMySQL Blog post »

Events

Live Web Seminar (Italian): Discover the New MySQL Network Monitoring and Advisory Services!

Wednesday, November 22nd, 10:00am CET (Italy)

Now is your chance to discover MySQL Enterprise, including the new MySQL Network Monitoring and Advisory services. It's like having a "Virtual DBA Assistant" at your side. In this web seminar you'll learn and see how MySQL Enterprise will help you to:

Manage multiple servers with new monitoring and advisory services.
Gain in-depth visibility into the health of all your MySQL servers
Discover tuning opportunities you could not find yourself
Build custom monitoring and advisory rules tailored to the needs of your environment
Identify and fix problems before they become costly outages
Enforce MySQL recommended best practices

Live Web Seminar: An Introduction to MySQL Partitioning

Wednesday November 29, 2006, 10:00 am PDT; 1:00 pm EDT; 17:00 GMT

Are you working with really large data sets? Do you want to spread your MyISAM tables over many disks? Do you want to know about another transparent mechanism to increase your application performance other than indexes? In this webinar we will provide an overview of MySQL 5.1 partitioning, including:

Range Partitioning
List Partitioning
Hash/Key Partitioning
Composite Partitioning
Management of Partitions
Information Schema for Partitions
Partitioning and the Optimizer
An example of MySQL Partitioning

Live Web Seminar: High Performance MySQL Cluster using Dolphin Cluster Interconnect

Thursday, November 30, 2006, 10:00am PDT, 1:00pm EDT

Do you need to get better response times in your applications using MySQL Cluster? Do you need improved real-time characteristics for MySQL Cluster?

In this webinar we will provide an overview of MySQL partitioning, including:

Introduction to MySQL Cluster
Introduction to Dolphin SuperSockets
Introduction to Real-time Parameters in MySQL Cluster
Performance Parameters in MySQL Server for NDB Cluster
How to achieve 10 milliseconds failover times using MySQL - - -- Cluster with Dolphin Cluster Interconnect
Tested Configurations
Benchmark Results

Live Web Seminar (German): Web Session Management with MySQL

Thursday, December 7, 2006, 10:00am CET

Many web applications require knowledge of a user's interactions and current state on the website, as in online banking or ecommerce. This web seminar will explore how MySQL and MySQL Cluster can be used as part of a cost-effective, high-performance, open-source solution for database-centric session management.

Live Web Seminar: LAMP and *AMP Management with Hyperic HQ

Tuesday, December 12, 2006, 10:00am PDT, 1:00pm EDT

Hyperic HQ is an open source management platform designed to give control back to IT administrators. Many management frameworks and platforms are fairly limited in the types of technology they support, thus limiting the extent to which AMP-based solutions may be deployed. HQ takes a much more comprehensive approach that allows easier integration of new open source as well as proprietary software solutions.

Training, Consulting, and Certification

Training: MySQL 5.0 for Database Administrators (5 Days)

Paris, Atlanta, Rome, London

Is your MySQL database secure?
Do your users have the correct privileges and access rights?
Is your MySQL database operating at optimal efficiency? Do you want to increase the performance of your database and make sure it scales?
Do you want to save time using features like Stored Procedures, Triggers and Views?
Do you want to utilize the new enterprise features of MySQL 5.0?

MySQL Packaged Consulting: MySQL Performance Tuning & Optimization

(Starting at 3 Days)

Are you having critical application downtime that requires immediate resolution?
Do your applications slow down during busy times?
Are you having difficulties pinpointing performance bottlenecks?
Will finding and fixing performance issues take weeks of time and expertise that you just don't have?

Then the MySQL Performance Tuning & Optimization package is for you! Typical performance improvements range from 50% to 100% With customized tuning, performance may increase from 5 to 10 times Our consultants specialize in web applications, data warehouses, clustering, and embedded systems.

Contact the MySQL Consulting Team to Schedule a Visit » (http://www.mysql.com/company/contact/sales.html~s=consulting)

Partner Corner

NetVault: Backup APM for MySQL

This whitepaper discusses the top backup and recovery challenges facing MySQL environments and how NetVault: Backup's APM for MySQL addresses the needs of MySQL environments. BakBone's flexible backup and recovery options provide rapid recovery from data corruption while increasing confidence and reducing risk when deploying MySQL. This document is intended for the MySQL DBA who is looking to understand the proper ways of protecting their MySQL environment.

Download Now »

HP: Sizing Guide for HP BladeSystem

HP has teamed with MySQL to create a MySQL Sizing Guide and Performance Benchmarks for both low-end and midrange HP ProLiant BladeSystem servers.

Download Sizing Guide now »

The MySQL Team