Google Releases MySQL Enhancements

An anonymous reader noted that "Google has released its internally developed enhancements to MySQL to the open source community this week. Changes include improvements in replication, high availability configuration, and performance." It'll be interesting to see if the changes they made are of interest to other places using MySQL.

Re:so...

[bigman2003]

No, all hail MySQL.

I'm a recent convert from SQL Server, and I love MySQL now.

The fact that I can download a copy and get it running in about 20 minutes is the best part. The fact that the admin is pretty damn good, and easy, is the part that keeps me using it.

Maybe there IS something to this whole open-source thing.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

WTF?

[mekane8]

MySQL is the second most popular database behind Microsoft SQL Server, according to a winter 2006 report from Evans Data. Oracle comes in second if you combine its database offerings. The situation is similar among wireless developers, almost 30% of who use Microsoft SQL Server compared to the 20% who use MySQL.

What exactly does Oracle offer besides database offerings? How do you not include its "database offerings" when you're ranking the most popular databases? Is information week retarded? The vague reference to "wireless developers" is also weird. Wouldn't the Google page be more worth reading and more coherent?

InnoDB...?

[suv4x4]

Apparently something has changed in Google's usage of MySQL. They have this to say for their patch:

"In a perfect world, each feature would be provided as a separate patch and all code would be as portable as MySQL. We are not there yet. These have been implemented and deployed on Linux. Also, some of these features only work with InnoDB, because we use InnoDB."

InnoDB is the slower, but safer/transaction-able way to use MySQL. In an earlier blog entry "let's get a real database", Google revealed they run AdWords/AdSense on MySQL, and they rolled up their own transactions as they went for speed with MySQL. Now we see they changed their mind.

So I suppose that goes to show, never mind how limited your application, you better stay away from MyISAM: it'll bite you sooner or later.

Re:Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

They did that in 5.0 with strict mode.

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/server-sql- mode.html [mysql.com]

Re:so...

[bigman2003]

I don't want to get all niggly...

But I didn't claim that MySQL admin was better than SQL Server admin- I just said it was damn good.

I have had much better success with backup and restore on MySQL than I have had on SQL Server. I find the interface and functionality much easier to understand and much more obvious. The damn DTS in SQL Server is a black hole to me...admittedly I had a database replicate in the wrong direction about 4 years ago and I am still gun-shy when using it. Yes, it was my fault, but MySQL lays things out a little more clearly.

Re:so...

[Architect_sasyr]

Whilst the link escapes me there is a set of admin tools for MySQL that are almost identical to the 2k5 ones for MSSQL. Truth be told it doesn't look as flash, but they are still really nice to use. The one installed on my laptop (hence not being able to remember the name) allows for highlight execution of part of script a-la the SQL Studio and cut and pastes fine, I'm sure there is more than one tool out there that can do this!

I use both MS SQL and MySQL in corporate environments for various purposes and have to say that I like both for different reasons. MySQL is "damned good" in its own right, but there are some ANSI features available in MSSQL I really have trouble living without (for example: DELETE FROM tblData WHERE fldValue = '3' OUTPUT INTO tblBackup). My thought would be to see what Google have to offer, if it helps me, then great, if it doesn't, it's great for the community, and in a few years time when MySQL has all the features I require I can finally throw out the MS SQL servers.

My $0.02 AU

Re:InnoDB...?

[fruey]

I've seen a lot of people saying InnoDB is slower, but last time I converted a forum from MyISAM to InnoDB it was *faster* on reads, it was the writes that were slower...

And, of course, it didn't crash all the time.

Better replication is a start

[thsths]

Because the replication support in MySQL is very basic. A single master for the whole database, isn't that a bit limited? I had to run two database processes just because I had two data sources to replicate from.

Unfortunately, the patches from Google don't really fix the basic problem. I think MySQL needs a complete redesign of the replication function. Oracle seems to handle this much better: the replication is controlled on the master, not the client, and it works in just about any combination you can imagine. That is not to say that the MySQL replication is not useful in certain situations (it fans better), but it is very much limited to one kind of application.

Way to go.

They differentiate between 9i and 10g

[brokeninside]

The numbers from the Evans Data report [informationweek.com]:

1. MS SQL - 61%
2. mSQL - 40%
3. MS Access - 38%
4. Oracle 10g - 22%
5. Oracle 9i - 20%

The survey ``asked developers at 517 companies in its 2006 winter survey what database they developed with'' with developers allowed to give multiple answers. It isn't clear to me why Oracle was split between two versions while none of the other databases were.

Re:Great!

[jbellis]

"MyISAM is faster than InnoDB" is certainly the conventional wisdom. It's also wrong. [blogspot.com]