Colin Charles Agenda

MySQL has had this Enterprise Monitor around for a while, but I’ve not had the chance to try it. Well, all this changed briefly in July, when I was doing my APAC tour, and folk wanted to see Enterprise Monitor at work. Back then, I showed them some canned screenshots, and in Singapore, Kim Seong (famous on #mysql) from our partners Global Link, had some kind of special login, so they demoed it. It wasn’t until this week that I actually tried it (besides, it wasn’t until the UC-J that it was re-launched with new features), and found some time to play with it. And I was blown away.

An excessive table scan, you say?

With new features for replication monitoring, personally what I find most useful are the pretty graphs (you may not find it useful with one or two machines, but in an enterprise-level install base of databases, graphs are not only pretty, they are useful). On top of the graphs, there’s also advisors, which save you time, so that you can avoid reading the documentation, or finding pain points, yourself. I think this is what Brian really referred to on saving your Jedi’s time. Advisors, are crucial, and I think that’s what differentiates this product.

How to fix table scans… and links to the manual!

The UI is impressive. Its all very modern, looking very Web 2.0. Its Tomcat based on the backend, so the install file is a tad large, and the usual requirements that come with Java applications are present, but I’m pleased to say the server I’ve had access to play with is an under-powered AMD machine. You can set it to auto-refresh in your browser, which can be useful for maybe displaying it on a dedicated screen (think of being in a air traffic control tower, maybe?).

Shiny! Pretty graphs… showing useful information

Installation is somewhat easy (it could be easier, like maybe via apt-get or yum). Support diagnostics are interesting enough, it really does remind me of the sysreport utility in Red Hat/Fedora. It talks to 5.0.x and 5.1.x seamlessly, it doesn’t care what OS they’re on, and I’m unsure if the agent runs against say an older MySQL (though I don’t see why not).

Replication monitor (click for larger image)

The marketing materials on the Web don’t do enough justice for this useful tool. I wish there was an online demo of sorts or maybe the user manual was placed online, or just way more screenshots. Failing which, give the 30-day Enterprise Trial a go. Yes, Enterprise Monitor is not free :( I signed up a couple of days ago, spent about five minutes signing up (three email exchanges! Highly complicated), and got access to everything Enterprise-y.

Technorati Tags: mysql enterprise monitor replication

I don’t know about you, but the idea behind MySQL University is pretty amazing. It is truly a great way to come learn with us. The sessions are normally done via IRC and voice streaming, which is also recorded, however, seeing it in person at the MySQL DevMeeting, was just fabulous.

There are obviously so many more Uni sessions that I wish I went to, but I’m lucky in the sense that they’re all recorded, so expect to see them online soon. Kudos to the scribes!

I attended a few interesting sessions yesterday:

• How to Create a Test Case by Omer and Matthias - this was highly interesting, as I got a deeper understanding of our test framework. More importantly, I’ve found out that this is obviously an extension to mysql-test, and isn’t online yet, so I’ve pestered Omer to ensure that it reaches mysql.bkbits.net in due time. Of course it can’t be merged as part of MySQL, because it isn’t part of 5.0 or 5.1, but its impressive that you can run tests that help you move from 5.0 to 5.1 and so on. Tests for minor version upgrades are also obviously supported, all in all, cool stuff.
• Following a Query Back and Forth in the Server by Sergei - amazing, seriously. Good explanation, great images, and if you need to grind all the performance out of your queries, you can see where you might find pain points, when they do occur.
• MySQL Proxy Overview by Jan Kneschke - now, all I want to do is play with the Proxy. Its ultimately cool stuff, and if you haven’t been enthralled by it yet, consider taking a look at it now. Its easily scriptable in LUA, which is a language I attempted to learn last night, by reading the Blue PIL book (sounds nicer when you say it :P). Consider checking out Programming in Lua, which I wish was available on my Safari subscription, however, the older version is online…

As an aside, that isn’t exactly MySQL University based, but LUA seems to be the embedded language of choice at MySQL now. Proxy, Enterprise tools, and so on. Looks like its well worth knowing.

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Via Khairil:

There is enough of us in the younger voting generation, that can say enough is enough, and it’s time to now shape Malaysia for us and not simply accept the corrupt racist system that is in place.

He’s so right. Even if you are overseas, you can still vote (postal votes, to your nearest consulate). I encourage you to read his entire post, because, he is definitely a forward thinking Malaysian. (notice, I didn’t care about his race?)

Register to vote. And just vote the opposition. Denying a 2/3rds majority is what needs to happen. And if what needs to happen again is the May 13 Incident, then so be it. The racist NEP must go. The mentality that half the population must limp on crutches with hand-outs from the government, is dated - a lazy Malaysia, be-gone.

Technorati Tags: malaysia politics voting may13 nep corrupt