Posts Tagged ‘Paris’

Trip report: LinuxCon North America, CentOS Dojo Paris, WebExpo Prague

I had quite a good time at LinuxCon North America/CloudOpen North America 2014, alongside my colleague Max Mether – between us, we gave a total of five talks. I noticed that this year there was a database heavy track – Morgan Tocker from Oracle’s MySQL Team had a few talks as did Martin MC Brown from Continuent. 

The interest in MariaDB stems from the fact that people are starting to just see it appear in CentOS 7, and its just everywhere (you can even get it from the latest Ubuntu LTS). This makes for giving interesting talks, since many are shipping MariaDB 5.5 as the default choice, but that’s something we released over 2 years ago; clearly there are many interesting new bits in MariaDB 10.0 that need attention!

Chicago is a fun place to be – the speaker gift was an architectural tour of Chicago by boat, probably one of the most useful gifts I’ve ever received (yes, I took plenty of photos!). The Linux Foundation team organised the event wonderfully as always, and I reckon the way the keynotes were setup with the booths in the same room was a clear winner – pity we didn’t have a booth there this year. 

Shortly afterwards, I headed to Paris for the CentOS Dojo. The room was full (some 50 attendees?), whom were mainly using CentOS and its clear that CentOS 7 comes with MariaDB so this was a talk to get people up to speed with what’s different with MySQL 5.5, what’s missing from MySQL 5.6, and when to look at MariaDB 10. We want to build CentOS 7 packages for the MariaDB repository (10.0 is already available with MariaDB 10.0.14), so watch MDEV-6433 in the meantime for the latest 5.5 builds.

Then there was WebExpo Prague, with over 1,400 attendees, held in various theatres around Prague. Lots of people here also using MariaDB, some rather interesting conversations on having a redis front-end, how we power many sites, etc. Its clear that there is a need for a meetup group here, there’s plenty of usage.

Paybox Services and seeing MariaDB in use

paybox servicesWhen 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.

La Fourchette du Printemps

Beautiful quaint little restaurant at Rue du Printemps, nearby the Wagram metro station. It has one Michelin star. Lunch tasting menu is 45 euros a pop (February 2012) – starter, main course, desert. They also give you a pre-starter (free) plus a pre-desert (free). They close for lunch at 2pm, but entertained us right till 3.30pm – brilliant service. Chocolate desert for presentation was absolutely amazing – worth taking a video snapshot in-memory. Main course was out of this world. Definitely worth paying a visit; all credit cards (visa/master/amex) accepted.

MariaDB/MySQL users in Paris & Brussels

I’m about to head to Paris to present at the February meetup of the MySQL User Group in Paris, France. It happens 1st February from 6-8pm at the Patricks Irish Pub. Its free to attend, and I understand that SkySQL keeps this event afloat.

I’m also heading to my first FOSDEM right afterwards and will definitely hang out at the MySQL & Friends Devroom. There is an amazing lineup of speakers, with all talks being about 25-30 minutes, it looks like it is going to be a lot of fun. To boot, Michael “Monty” Widenius will also be there, so expect lots of Salmiakkikossu.

If you want to keep track of where Monty Program folk are going to be to talk about MariaDB, make sure you’re subscribed to our news page, which also includes important release information. Pretty much every conference that we plan to attend (and have attended) is at the conference page.

I am looking forward to meeting & learning from many MariaDB/MySQL users!

Berthillon ice-cream

One of the best ice creams in the world is by Berthillon. Get it exclusively in Paris, France. Get a few scoops if you happen to be there. The ice creams are truly luxurious (never bothered with the sorbets). Many shops on the “island” sell it, and its got heritage — started in 1954. Google Maps link.


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