Colin Charles Agenda

I think MariaDB has had a great few weeks recently and the timeline of these events are important.

1. 27 November 2012 – WiredTree Adds MariaDB for Faster MySQL Database Performance (well worth reading their motivations to switch)
2. 29 November 2012 – Monty Program & SkySQL release the MariaDB Client Library for C & Java
3. 4 December 2012 – MariaDB Foundation is announced, see ZDNet coverage.
4. mid-December 2012 – Wikimedia Foundation starts migrating Wikipedia to MariaDB, not for any other reason besides the fact that the Foundation was announced (more ZDNet coverage).

Now, there have been rumors that the client libraries are just rip-offs or relicensed. They are not. They’ve been in works for customers for several years now (yes, Monty Program does need to pay the bills), and there are many a feature difference. This will be addressed next week to ensure that people know what they’re getting.

There have also been rumors that the foundation was announced with regards to the connectors. Wrong again. Connectors were announced first, foundation came later (see timeline above). You don’t do these things in a span of one week, the talk for the foundation has been going on for months. I should know, as alongside Monty & Rasmus, I’ve been somewhat involved.

I agree that we need better communications (remember to like us on facebook, follow us on twitter @mariadb), and we’re working on it. Its also that time of year when people love to take vacations (I am one of them). All that said, watch http://blog.mariadb.org/ closely as that’s the official channel for all things MariaDB.

2012 has been a great year for MariaDB in general, as the project grows, we get more coverage (see news reports), unparalleled downloads thanks to our 5.5-series being released, and our expanding product lines. I can forsee 2013 being even more exciting. Thank you all for an amazing 2012.

Happy new year and here’s to a great 2013!

This is the third time MySQL has made an entry into the Oracle Critical Patch Update Advisory service. The first time, we at Team MariaDB came up with an analysis: Oracle’s 27 MySQL security fixes and MariaDB.

Security is important to a DBA. Having vague explanations does no one any good. Even Oracle ACE Director Ronald Bradford chooses to ask some tough questions on this issue. Recently we found a bug in MySQL & MariaDB and did some responsible disclosure as well. 

Security is a big deal to distributions shipping MySQL. It comes alongside having a good, accessible bugs system. Recall a discussion a while back about possibly even replacing MySQL with MariaDB (this led to a fun discussion and a long meeting at UDS Oakland to ensure choice).

These discussions always come back. Today on the Debian mailing list, the suggestion popped back up again. I’m sure it will pop up again in October when the next CPU includes some fixes in MySQL…

What is Oracle going to do about this? Will it start being more open (not with a select few folk, but with the wider community)?

One of the things we (Team MariaDB) talked quite a bit about since we released was PBXT. It was a feature differentiation to MySQL as we shipped another storage engine. It was included in MariaDB 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3; however with our release of MariaDB 5.5, PBXT (docs in the Knowledgebase) has been deprecated and not built by default any longer.

The reason behind it is clear: PBXT is currently not under active development. We still include it in the source releases and if you would like to use it, you just have to build it. If and when development around it comes back to an active state with bugs being fixed and the engine being pushed forward, I’m sure we’ll start building it again. In the meantime, much thanks to Paul McCullagh for developing a great transactional engine.

Just yesterday, I’m sure many saw Twitter opensourcing their MySQL implementation. It is based on MySQL 5.5 and the code is on Github.

For reference, the database team at Facebook has always been actively blogging, and keeping up their code available on Launchpad. Its worth noting that the implementation there is based on MySQL 5.0.84 and 5.1.

At Twitter, most of everything persistent is stored in MySQL – interest graphs, timelines, user data and those precious tweets themselves! At Facebook, its pretty similar – all user interactions like likes, shares, status updates, requests, etc. are all stored in MySQL (ref).

The media has picked up on it too. A fairly misinformed piece on GigaOm (MySQL has problems focused on Stonebrakers fate worst than death? Pfft. Facebook wants to move its code to github? Read the reasoning — its spam handling on LP.), and a shorter piece on CNET.

Both Twitter and Facebook code trees mention that its what they use in their environments, but it’s not supported in any way, shape or form. Facebook recommends Percona Server or MariaDB. Facebook also has tools like online schema change in the repository, amongst others like prefetching tools written in Python.

I haven’t had the chance to play with the Twitter release yet, but it looks like this can only push Percona Server and MariaDB forward. Based on 5.5, some of these BSD-licensed features can make it in, and some have already made it in I’m sure. And what pushes these servers, will push MySQL forward (see lots of new features in MySQL 5.6).

On a personal note, it is amazing to see some MySQL-alumni push this forward. At Twitter, there’s Jeremy Cole and Davi Arnaut. At Facebook, the team includes Domas Mituzas, Harrison Fisk, Yoshinori Matsunobu, Lachlan Mulcahy. Nothing would be complete without mentioning Mark Callaghan (though not-MySQL alumni, active MySQL community member) who led a MySQL team at Google, and now at Facebook.

When I was at MySQL, I took for granted that pretty much every website I used had software at the back of it that was basically MySQL. It was a nice feeling. MariaDB is a lot younger, so when I was in Paris and had to make a payment for the taxi I was sitting in, I smiled a little when I saw that Paybox Services was processing my transaction. Some might recall that Paybox Services deployed MariaDB, since the 5.2 release. It was a wonderful feeling that somewhere in that transaction, MariaDB was behind it!

Paybox wanted some features inside of MySQL 5.5 and have been holding out for MariaDB 5.5. Its kind of nice to see that today, MariaDB 5.5.22 has been released as a release candidate. It is only a matter of time before Paybox can benefit from things they’ve wanted like semi-sync replication.

Right after Percona Live Santa Clara (which MariaDB is quite present for), its worth noting there are a few more events happening on Friday, April 13, 2012 at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara. MariaDB will be present at 2/3 of those events.

• SkySQL & MariaDB Solutions Day – go ahead and register
• Sphinx Search Day – if you dig full-text search, you should be present so go ahead and register

The one event MariaDB won’t be present at is the Drizzle Day. That doesn’t mean you can’t attend talks across all these events though — the schedules are synced so you can move freely across events. Friday in itself is like a mini-conf, because it seems like there will be four simultaneous tracks happening.