MySQL at Oracle Open World 2016

MySQL is a growing presence at Oracle Open World. While most of the headlines belong to the main products, where Oracle services are aiming at world domination, MySQL shared the spotlight, as it was announced to be part of Oracle database cloud. It seems a logical move for Oracle: after all the effort to make MySQL 5.7 the biggest release ever, it stands to reason that it is offered as a competitive feature in its own database as a service.

With this offer, Oracle is applying enterprise pricing and methodologies to a target of emerging companies. MySQL in the Oracle cloud differs from the competition by a few key points:

• It's only MySQL 5.7. While this is the most advanced MySQL server available, users with existing deployments may exercise caution before adopting this cloud service. Companies that are starting now, instead, may take advantage of using the latest and greatest.
• It's MySQL Enterprise edition, with a wealth of additional monitoring and management tools that are missing in other cloud offerings.
• Unlike some popular competitors, it includes access to the server host, allowing DBAs to enable plugins, fine tune the deployment, and explore the operating system in addition to the database.
• It includes Oracle support.

Time will tell if this offering will be successful. It may not appeal to all the users, but there is surely a category of power users who can take advantage of these features.

The surprises of the MySQL keynote did not stop at the cloud. We had already seen, one week before the conference, that MySQL 8.0 was released, with many juicy features. What came unexpected are two announcements:

• MySQL group replication, a product that has been living in MySQL Labs for quite a while, was declared "release candidate" despite lacking documentation and being released in a format that discourages adoption, except from diehard hackers.
• Another product is been released, again in the labs, with an ambitious mission. The MySQL InnoDB cluster is based on group replication and wants to be a 15-minute deployment of high-availability and scalable system, thanks to an enhanced version of MySQL Shell (the same used for the document store. Its feature set are exciting, but what we have seen in the demos suggests that the product is still in the early stages of development.

With these moves, Oracle is showing two paths of MySQL development:

• in the main path, which has produced the GA of MySQL 5.5, 5.6, and 5.7, the MySQL team is showing the positive influence of Oracle engineering, with focus on security, performance, and stability.
• in a parallel course, which started last April with the announcement of MySQL document store and its related shell, the team wants to introduce new features to a GA release as plugins, with the reasoning that the main release will not be touched (thus avoiding the taboo of altering a stable product) but users are free to enable plugins and unleash new functionalities.

The mix of traditional and agile releases are provoking exciting thoughts, albeit moderated by the fear of using together experimental code in a GA deployment.

The methodology of these releases is also baffling. It is unclear how mature is the document store. The plugin comes with the server, and it is accompanied by an huge set of documentation, which implies that it has been designed extensively and tested internally for a while, but the main tool for the feature, mysql shell is labeled as development preview: not very encouraging. On the other hand, the latest plugin addition, the MySQL group replication, which has been declared of release candidate quality, is still in the labs (no plugin in the server release), and without documentation.

All considered, while it is clear that Oracle is putting an enormous engineering effort into growing MySQL, I have the feeling that the replication features have been neglected and the announcement of group replication mixed fortunes confirms me in this belief.

The conference was useful to me. I had the chance of meeting many Oracle engineers and users, and discuss technical and community matters at length. My own presentation, a two-hour tutorial on MySQL operations in Docker was highly satisfactory, as it proved to be an interesting topic that was actively discussed by the audience.

Lightning talks at Percona Live Amsterdam: come on stage!

The schedule to Percona Live Europe 2016 is being finalized. It should be published soon, and it will include 3 hour and 6 hour tutorials, regular 50-minute talks, and shorter 25-minutes talks. It will not include, however, the lightning talks, a session comprising several 5-minute talks, and they are missing from the initial schedule for two reasons:

• We want to offer a chance to all attendees to propose a lightning talk for some time. We would like to have more quality material to choose from.
• They will not be in the conference venue. Instead, they will be hosted at Booking, during the community dinner.

Unlike in previous editions, though, the lightning talks will be kept separated from the party. We want the talks to be enjoyable for both the speakers and the attendees, free from distracting noise. Booking will offer its auditorium for this purpose, and this means a chance to speak in a very prestigious place.

Accepted lightning talks speakers will receive a 50 EUR discount on the conference registration. Additionally, LT speakers will enjoy an further benefit, as they will receive a free ticket for the community dinner hosted at Booking headquarters.

You have still some time left. I will accept proposals until the and of August. Don't wait! Submit a proposal for a lightning talk and claim your spot in the limelight (and a free dinner!)

Lightning talks at Percona Live Data Performance Conference

The main schedule for the Percona Live Data Performance Conference is available. Almost everything has been defined. There are tutorials and plenty of sessions waiting for conference attendees.

One thing that is still undefined is the session of lightning talks. The call for participation for these mini sessions of 5 minutes each is still open. If you plan to attend Percona Live, this is your chance to get your 5 minutes of celebrity: you can submit a proposal up to February 7th, 2016. There is a lot that can be said in 5 minutes. If you have an interesting topic to highlight, a pet project to show off, a neat trick to recommend, a happy or painful experience to share, a lightning talk is the right place to apply.

There are also open slots for Birds Of A Feather (BoF) sessions. These are not lectures, but rather meetings of users who share the same interest. If you want to apply for one of these sessions, don't propose a topic where you address the audience, but propose a theme for a discussion among peers. BoF sessions are often the place where new ideas are born, helped by the free discussion among passionate users. If you have an open source project and want to ask for feedback, or if you want help defining the road map for an already successful project, a BoF is what you need. Also for this kind of sessions, the deadline is February 7th.

And remember: the conference is not limited to MySQL. Every data related topic (such as nosql, big data, database engines, data storage technologies) could trigger an interesting talk.

Percona Live Amsterdam - September 21-23, 2015

I am attending Percona Live Amsterdam 2015 on September 21-23, 2015.

I will be on stage three times:

• September 22nd at 2:10pm Pivot tables: analytics in pure SQL
• September 23rd at 2:10pm The future of replication is today: new features in practice
• September 23rd at 5:10pm as host and speaker in the Lightning talks

My first talk is a topic that has ben among my favorites for long time: I published an article about it in 2001, and several more in the years to come.

The second one is a summary of what I have written recently about replication technologies.

The lightning talks are a collection of 5-minutes long talks that are presented by different speakers. For the first time, the LT are held in a separate room instead of being attached to one of the community events. It will be fun!

Percona has just released a mobile app for the conference for both iOS and Android. With it, it is possible to set a personalized schedule, follow the show more closely, and get in touch with other attendees. It is a very good addition!

There is much to watch at the conference, and I look forward to seeing the latest innovation in the field. I will miss some very interesting talks because they are at the same time as mine (!!) but I hope I will catch up with the speakers in the conference hall.

Lightning talks at Percona Live MySQL Conference and Expo 2013

It happened last year at the previous Conference, and it's going to happen this year as well.

There will be a session of lightning talks during the conference, for the joy of both the audience and the speakers.

Lightning talks are fun and instructional micro events. Their official purpose is to give the audience a chance to learn something in a very limited amount of time. The real purpose is for the speaker to be as entertaining and memorable as possible within the allocated time.

The call for participation is open from now until February 10th. If you have something that you want to say in not more than 5 minutes, you can SUBMIT A PROPOSAL.

In addition to propose a compelling description that will make us choose your proposal, be aware of the lightning talks rules:

• All slides will be loaded into a single computer, to minimize delays between talks;
• Someone (probably me) will nag the speakers until they either surrender their slides or escape to Mexico;
• All speakers will meet 15 minutes before the start, and be given the presentation order. Missing speakers will be replaced by reserve speakers;
• The speaker will have 5 minutes to deliver the talk.
• When one minute is left, there will be a light sound to remind of the remaining time.
• When 10 seconds are left, most likely the audience will start chanting the countdown.
• When the time is finished, the speaker must leave the place to the next one.

BTW, if lightning talks are not for you, you may try Birds of a feather (BoF) sessions instead. Also for BoFs, the deadline is February 10th.

Solving replication problems with Tungsten replicator

On Monday afternoon, Neal Armitage and I will be speaking at Percona Live in London. It will be a three hours tutorial about Tungsten replicator.

The contents of this tutorial are mostly new. We have released recently a new and easier way of installing different topologies, in the shape of cookbook scripts, which are distributed with the replicator tarball.

Using this cookbook, any user can simply install multiple topologies, from the simple master/slave to all-masters, fan-in, and star.

There are recipes for showing the replication cluster, switching roles between master and a chosen slave, taking over MySQL replication, installing direct slaves with parallel replication, testing each topology, and uninstalling all.

All the above will be demonstrated during the tutorial, with the addition of conflict prevention and more management issues.

The Tungsten cookbook in the wiki has been updated to reflect the changes.

My speaking engagements - Q4 2012

After a long pause in the speaking game, I am back.

It's since April that I haven't been on stage, and it is now time to resume my public duties.

• I will speak at MySQL Connect in San Francisco, just at the start of Oracle Open World, with a talk on MySQL High Availability: Power and Usability. It is about the cool technology that is keeping me busy here at Continuent, which can make life really easy for DBAs. This talk will be a demo fest. If you are attending MySQL Connect, you should see it!
• A happy return for me. On October 27th I will talk about open source databases and the pleasures of command line operations at Linux Day in Cagliari, my hometown. Since I speak more in California than in my own backyard, I am happy that this year I managed to get a spot here.
• The company will have a team meeting in Nopvember (Barcelona, here we come!) and from there I will fly to Bulgaria, where I am speaking at the Bulgarian Oracle User Group conference. Here I will have two talks, one about MySQL for business, and the other is "MySQL High Availability for the masses".
• A few days later, again on the road, in London, for Percona Live, with a talk on MySQL High Availability: Power, Magic, and Usability. It is again about our core products, with some high technology fun involved. I will show how our tools can test the software, spot the mistakes, fix the cluster, and even build a step-by-step demo.

See you around. Look for me carefully, though. I may look differently from how I have been depicted so far.

Webinar: Percona and Continuent on backup and replication with huge data

On Thursday, February 10, at 10am PST, there is a free webinar about Managing Big Data with Percona Server, XtraBackup and Tungsten. Quoting from the announcement:

Big data is a big problem for growing SaaS businesses and large web applications. In this webinar, we'll teach you how to set up Percona Server, XtraBackup, and Tungsten to manage Terabyte+ databases and scale to millions of transactions a day. We'll discuss the latest features for high transaction performance like InnoDB buffer pool dump/restore and HandlerSocket, our favorite tricks for backup, restore, and provisioning of large data sets, and how to replicate scalably and safely using Tungsten Replicator with parallel apply.

The presenters are representatives of both Percona and Continuent,
Vadim Tkachenko, Percona Co-Founder & CTO,
Robert Hodges, Continuent CEO
Edward Archibald, Continuent CTO

The event will showcase Xtrabackup and Tungsten features in an interesting combined view.
The event is free, but registration is required.

Speaking at the O'Reilly MySQL Conference - April 2011

I will present two talks at the MySQL Conference next April.
One is a three hours tutorial on Advanced MySQL Replication Techniques, and the other is a normal session on The art of sandboxing. Reducing Complex Systems to Manageable Boxes.
The first topic is not a first to me. But the contents are going to be fresh and new. There has been so much going on in the replication field, that the talk on this topic that I presented in 2007 looks like ancient history.
The second topic is completely new. I have often presented the result of my sandboxing efforts, but I have never thought of explaining the techniques themselves. Now that I have got some experience at reducing differently complex systems to sandboxes, I want to share the knowledge, to promote more work in this field.

My wish list for OpenSQLCamp, Boston 2010

On Friday, October 15^th, the third OpenSQLCamp in North America will start at 6pm with a social event and then continue with more technical stuff over the week end.
Compared to the overcrowded Oracle Open World with its 45,000 attendees, this event may look like a desert. But the quality of the attendance will more than compensate for the missing thousands.
The event will be held with unconference style. There is a list of sessions, where I have proposed two topics, one for which I would like to see someone stepping up and help defining the topic of Data integrity : comparing the SQL and NoSQL approach and one where I plan to tell an cute technical story about MySQL replication and the quest for a global transaction ID.

Free software and business in Sardinia

On June 10th and 11th I attended two interesting workshops, both related to the Italian Free Software conference, and both organized by private institutions that have expanded their boundaries and created two quite lively international events.

The first event was held near Pula, in an innovation laboratory encased in a beautiful forest. The Technological Park of Sardegna Ricerche is a place where research and business boil together to produce new companies and to help consolidate existing ones.
The workshop was titled A community for a new business model and it was a show case of a dozen companies, both local and from abroad. After the presentations and a lovely open air lunch, there were 1-to-1 20 minutes meetings between companies, to dive deeper in technologies, ideas, and friendships. I must say that I enjoyed the event, not only because my presentation on MySQL community and values was quite well received, but also because I met interesting people and found some new ideas that need further exploration.
The main event, the fourth Italian free software conference, was not as exciting. The organizers decided to paint the event with local colors only, thus making it less interesting for me, as my job takes me around more abroad than in my own country. Oh' well. It's the Italian conference after all, and it has the right of being an all-Italian show. IMO, it's a pity, though. Exposure to external ideas is often beneficial, and I would have welcomed at least some openness beyond the national boundaries.
Anyway, the show was rescued by another workshop, organized by a local company, which was not afraid of venturing in international waters. The company is named Tzente, which means People in Sardinian, and true to their name they brought to the event several international companies, with Italian and foreign speakers. Also this event was very lively and interesting.
The hosts (Tzente) are a company to keep an eye on. They produce an open source software, called Java Agile Portal System or jAPS for short. In spite of the name, jAPS is much more than a portal. It's an integrated and versatile system to automate companies and public organizations. Their business model is simple: give the components away for free, thus building a community of users and testers, and sell integration and customization services either directly or through partners. Compared to many other startups, Tzente has a distinct advantage over the competition. They have customers. Not only they produce an excellent open source product, but their monetization strategy has already brought them large customers in Italy and abroad. They have partnerships with well known names (among which MySQL, Pentaho, Ingres, Red Hat) and I think they are going to grow fast. Good job, Tzente!
A personal note. At the first workshop I did my presentation in English, and I felt very comfortable. At the second workshop, I did the same presentation in Italian. I had the feeling that the English version was more effective. Probably I am traveling too much.

MySQL user groups in Dubai and Sydney, on my way to NZ

In January 2010 I will attend Linux.Conf.Au, which this year is held in Wellington, New Zealand. It's a long way from Europe to New Zealand, and so I will take a few stops. On January 13 I will be in Dubai, UAE. If you are around, I would love to organize a MySQL meeting. I haven heard back from the local user group and it seems that a meeting will take place. Stay tuned for more. On January 15th I will be in Sydney. The organizers are already at work. We will definitely have an user group meeting. I am open to suggestions about the topics.

From Sydney, I will continue to Wellington, where I will attend LCA2009 and then DrupalSouth before coming back to my usual time zone.

Codebits 2009, coders conference and competition in Lisbon

Codebits is approaching. Form December 3rd to 5th, this gathering of 600 developers for a conference, which is also and foremost a competition, will occupy the mind of the best coders in Europe. I will be a speaker, with two sessions: Schema maintenance in MySQL, focusing mainly on MySQL Workbench, but with an introduction to the other choices. Introduction to Gearman - a distributed, language and OS independent system for dynamic programming.

Also Lenz will be there, and quite busy. He will also have two sessions:

• Why you should be using a distributed version control system (DVCS) for your project, with advice that will benefit every developer.
• MySQL High Availability Solutions - Best practices and commonly used HA setups for MySQL

The event is hardly like any other conference. It will be a momentous show, with a part that start like a conference but goes on as a competition.
If you like coding, you must show up!

First Kosovo Free Software Conference

The first Free Software Conference in Kosovo is being held on August 29-30 in Prishtina, Kosovo. The newborn state, which declared independence in 2008, is growing in several ways. Besides economic and political growth, also technology is expanding. In this fresh environment, free and open source software can have an important role. The conference schedule includes local and international speakers.

I have a strong professional and personal relationship with Kosovo. Before and after the war, from 1998 to 2002, I was part of the OSCE-UN mission that helped the country in its first steps towards independence. And there I found my wife. Thus, it's with great pleasure that I will do a keynote on the theme of Freedom beyond free of charge.
And although the talk won't be about MySQL, it will nonetheless have a role in the story. Some of the freedom that was achieved during the UN Mission in Kosovo days is also due a combination of Linux, FreeBSD, MySQL, and many more free software projects.

Speaking at FrOSCon 2009 and getting ready to OpenSQLCamp-Europe

For the fourth time in a row, I will be speaking at FrOSCon, one of the most charming open source events in Europe.
Hosted in the bright environment of the Department of Computer Science of the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, this event will get you hooked from the beginning. The organization is done by volunteers, who have always done an amazing job, with even better results than more expensive and famous conferences.
This year, there will be some more action than ever before. In addition to the main event, the organizers have given away a few developers rooms, to let some projects build their own event within the main one. There will be a Java subconference, and, closer to my interests, the European edition of the OpenSQLCamp 2009, which applies to all open database related projects, such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, JavaDB, and many others that are listed in the announcements page. The principal organizer is Lenz Grimmer, who is looking for volunteers to share the burden.
The organizers have also launched a creative contest, which most geeks will find irresistible. Check it out!
FrOSCon started as one of the many LAMP events, and in its fourth year it has emerged as an example for others. I warmly recommend it to all people interested in open source.

Open Communities in Madrid - June 18-19

I am going to Madrid, Spain, to participate in the Open Communities Forum on June 18-19.
As usual with Sun open events, the agenda includes several actors in the open source arena, such as MySQL, Java, Open Solaris, with topics ranging from web development to mobile integration.
It looks promising, and I look forward to this event, which is my first one in Spain.
On the first day, I will do an introductory talk about MySQL, and a more technical workshop for advanced users. The second day will be mainly dedicated to meeting users in the area, but I will also do a guest appearance in a talk about database testing.

MySQL 5.4 - performance at your fingertips

The session at the Boston MySQL User Group was very enjoyable. There was a full room, and the presentation was followed with attention and curiosity. The slides I used for this presentation include the deck used by Allan Packer and Mikael Ronström at the MySQL Conference 2009, followed by a testimony of my own experience with 5.4. Here is the final deck: MySQL 5.4 theory and practice

While preparing the slides, I realized that, for the first time, we have a product that allows a painless performance gain. Unlike all the tuning and technological improvements that you can use to improve performance so far, upgrading to MySQL 5.4 is a simple and easy step to a performance gain. It deserves at least some testing, because of the huge difference that it can make.

On May 21, there will be an online presentation by Allan Packer on MySQL 5.4 Benchmarks In-Depth.

MySQL 5.4 at the MySQL Boston User group

The MySQL Boston User group will meet on May 11 at 7pm. I will speak about my experience using MySQL 5.4, with some general information on the release. BTW, you know that there has been some trouble about MySQL meetup groups. We are looking into the matter, and we will release information as soon as possible. For now, I can tell you that the current agreement between MySQL and Meetup is valid at least until June 10, 2009.

MySQL Campus tour at USC - Slow start, brilliant ending

The Southern California branch of the MySQL Campus Tour is almost over. At the USC, attendance was very good, and even better was the enthusiasm and the participation we met. The meeting didn't start well. Our hotel is 11 miles away from the USC campus, and we figured out that heading to the campus 1 hour before the planned time ought to be enough. After 65 minutes, we had done exactly 7 miles, in one of the worst traffic jams that I have ever seen, but the locals tell me that it's pretty standard stuff down here. Anyway, we started 20 minutes later than expected, and we were pleasantly surprised that nobody had left, and a faithful audience had been waiting for us patiently.

The event went very well after that, and the participation was intense and passionate. Four students asked me how to become MySQL developers, and many had questions on Sun business model. After a while, the delay and the traffic jam were forgotten, and the event turned out to be very pleasant. There were 52 attendees. Like in a deck of cards. So Sheeri noted that probably we were the jokers!
I would like to thank the campus ambassadors Lynn Janh and Raed Shomali for the excellent organization and their patience with our forced delay.
Tomorrow we will talk at the L.A. MySQL meetup and then we will move North, to the MySQL Conference.

Gurus show at the Los Angeles Meetup - April 17

If you are in the Los Angeles area, you have two more chances to meet the MySQL gurus on their way to the the MySQL Conference. Today at the USC, Sheeri and I will conclude the South California MySQL Campus Tour. Tomorrow, April 17, big gathering at the Los Angeles MySQL Meetup Group, where Andrew Aksyonoff, Sheeri, and myself will be the speakers. Come along!

During the event, I will do a quick live demonstration of the new features included in MySQL Sandbox 3.