Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Sun is serious about Open Source and the MySQL Community

In probably the best move by Sun during the whole MySQL Conference and Expo, Rich Green and Jonathan Schwartz turned up at the Community Dinner on the Sunday night before the conference.

As we walked into the restaurant I saw a face that I thought was familiar. Jonathan and Rich were standing outside the restaurant talking. However, only when we got inside did I hear Jay saying that that was Jonathan Schwartz.

So just before we all took our places, and while we were trying to work out how we were going to organize payment for the dinner, Rich and Jonathan turned up and quickly ended the discussion. Rich said his credit card would be good for the tab. So thanks to Sun for that!

But besides good food and plenty to drink, it was a great opportunity to talk and ask some questions that have been on my mind since the acquisition of MySQL by Sun. I have expressed these concerns on this blog, and they can be summarized as follows:

How important is open source, and in particular the MySQL community to Sun?

Both Rich and Jonathan were able to give me an adequate answer to this question. I will summarize this in my own words.

Sun bought MySQL to expand its business and influence in the open source world. So the MySQL community is the key to this.

I believe this means that Sun is not interested in commercializing any parts of the MySQL server, and here I am referring to the massive discussion that has resulted from the announcement MySQL to launch new features only in MySQL Enterprise on Jeremy Cole's blog. After all, it is clear that MySQL's bottom line (although profitable) makes no difference to Sun. They are interested in access to the over 10 million users of MySQL to sell services and hardware, those things that Sun already does well.

It is the MySQL's task to expand the user base, not endanger it. So I think we will see a change of strategy in the coming weeks and months.

And I can add the following: from what I have seen of it, MySQL's enterprise offering is really a great package without having to add a proprietary version of the server. It has everything a serious user of MySQL wants: 24 hour support, monitoring tools, design tools, service packs and priority bug fixing. And with Sun's backing, nobody doubts anymore that they can deliver this service.

Jonathan and Rich clearly demonstrated their support for the MySQL community by coming to the dinner. Besides clearing up some important questions, it was a great photo op.:



You may have seen this photo already on Ronald's blog. The picture is of Jonathan and I with the PrimBase Technologies conference T-shirt. If you look closely you will see another little detail. I have a dolphin in my pocket! I wonder if that has any symbolic meaning...

Jonathan tells a great story on his blog. But what is significant is the picture of Monty he posted, who is wearing a shirt that says "my free software runs your company". We have every reason to believe Jonathan fully supports this sentiment. So note that the T-shirt does not say "my partially free software ..."!

Oh, and in the picture of Monty, do you recognize the shirt of the person standing next to him? Since I generally only wear a shirt once, we know that this picture was also taking at the Community Dinner.

Friday, April 11, 2008

BLOB Streaming presentation at the MySQL Conference

My presentation on BLOB Streaming at the MySQL Conference next week will be very practical.

I have made quite a few graphics to show how it works, and plan to demonstrate the current version of the BLOB Streaming engine.

"To BLOB or not to BLOB?" is a common question in the database world. There are advantages and disadvantages to both sides. I'll be explaining why I believe that the "BLOB Repository" (a central component of the BLOB Streaming Architecture) combines the advantages of both approaches.

Check it out:

An Introduction to BLOB Streaming for MySQL Project
3:05pm - 3:50pm Wednesday, 04/16/2008
Ballroom A

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Replication is dead, long live Replication!

Brian Aker has found general agreement with his post: "The Death of Read Replication".

Arjen Lentz says "I think Brian is right...", and Frank Mash confirmed: "what Brian says about replication, caching and memcached is very true".

Just like Video killed the Radio Star it looks like maybe Memcached killed the Replication Hierarchy!

But of course, Brian and others are talking about replication for scaling reads.

In my session on PBXT next week at the conference I will be talking about how we plan to use synchronous replication to produce an HA solution for MySQL at the engine level.

I will also discuss how some flexibility in the PBXT architecture makes it possible to actually scale writes efficiently as mentioned by Arjen in his blog.

So don't miss it:

Inside the PBXT Storage Engine
10:50am - 11:50am Thursday, 04/17/2008
Ballroom G

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Welcome Ronald! Great to have you on board!

If you've been following his blog, then you will already know that Ronald Bradford has joined PrimeBase Technologies. We are very pleased to have him on board! As many know, Ronald has always been very active in the MySQL community as far as his job has made this possible.

Ironically during his time at MySQL he was less present in the community than before. When we discussed our plans for PrimeBase with him, Ronald was interested because it was an opportunity to return to a more active role in the community. I am very glad that this motivation was understood by almost everyone at MySQL and we are all looking forward to seeing and hearing more from Ronald.

But, of course, Ronald is not "just a pretty face" ;) He will be helping us to design and specify our open source products (including Blob Streaming). Ronald's extensive experience with both MySQL and end-users will contribute significantly to what we produce.

Ronald will also be helping us to refine our business model. We want all PrimeBase software to be open and free, so we've been thinking hard about how we can make this possible. All this makes it a very exciting time for us, and we will be talking more about of our plans in the days and weeks to come.

Of course, Ronald and I will be at the MySQL conference, so be sure to look us up!