This is the 143rd edition of Log Buffer, the weekly review of database blogs.

So . . .  Anything happen while I was away?

Okay, so I heard the big news. And just in case you haven’t, here it is from Sheeri Cabral: Oracle Buys Sun. This is a sea-change in the hi-tech world, and the DB part of it will also get rocked, Sun being the home of MySQL. There’s lots of comment in Sheeri’s post, and indeed, all over the database blogging world. I will try here to cover the best of it.

Oracle + Sun + MySQL

First, Monty Says: …

This year’s Oracle Open World is taking place from October 11-15th, 2009 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA. Paul Vallee noted that Oracle’s acquisition of Sun means that Open World will probably want a MySQL track, and Matt Yonkovit of Big DBA Head mentioned that a blog post on it would spread the word.

The Call for Presentations closes April 26th, which is in just 3 days. You can find out more and submit presentations at http://tinyurl.com/oow09prop. I spoke at Oracle Open World last year on “How to Be an Oracle ACE” and attending the conference was pretty mind-blowing.

If you do submit a talk, feel free to comment here with the title so we can get a broad range of topics submitted, not just 100 speakers …

Slides:
http://www.technocation.org/files/doc/2009Keynote.pdf

References:
I am @sheeri on twitter
My blog is at http://pythian.com/blogs/author/sheeri
My e-mail is cabral@pythian.com

Pythian became the first ever Sun Enterprise Remote DBA Partner — read the details at http://tinyurl.com/pythiansun.

Technocation, Inc can provide free web space for slides, videos and audio files. Their website is and you can e-mail them at info@technocation.org Technocation, Inc. is a 501(c) not-for-profit US corporation dedicated to providing educational resources for IT professionals.

…

I am very excited to be able to link to this press release announcing that The Pythian Group is the founding partner in MySQL’s brand-new “Remote DBA Provider” partnership program. This is great news for Pythian. It is also good news for Sun/MySQL. (Although admittedly nowhere near as attention-getting as Oracle’s announcement of their purchase [...]

It’s true — http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/technology/companies/21sun.html?_r=1&hp.

Ronald Bradford asked, “What does this mean for MySQL?”

Lots of people are going to be proclaiming that it is the death of MySQL, as they did when Oracle bought InnoDB.

But it is not. MySQL and Oracle may both be databases, but they are not competitors. To say they are competitors is like saying that an upscale bar and the corner convenience store are competitors because you can get soft drinks, coffee and tea at both. There are many applications for which Oracle is the appropriate solution, and there’s no reason to even try to see if MySQL can do the same job. Similarly there are many applications for which MySQL is the clearly appropriate solution and there’s no need …

I’m very proud to share with you a few things: Sheeri K. Cabral, Nick Westerlund, Paul Vallée, Peter Ling, and I (Augusto Bott) will be in Santa Clara, CA for the MySQL Conference and Expo, MySQL Camp, and the Percona Performance Conference, next week.

Nick and I will be presenting a session called Proactive Operational Measures on the Percona Conference, and another session called 8 Rules for Designing More Secure Applications at the MySQL Camp.

Sheeri will be presenting Understanding How MySQL …

I am thrilled to announce that this year’s MySQL Conference will feature a Community Keynote. This is a keynote speech delivered by a community member (not a Sun employee!) about topics relevant to us.

I am delivering this year’s keynote, entitled “How to be a MySQL Superhero” on Wednesday, April 22nd at 9:45 am Pacific. Details are at http://www.mysqlconf.com/mysql2009/public/schedule/detail/9098. This is a great indication that Sun and O’Reilly are taking community very seriously, and want to make sure that our voices are heard — literally.

I hope that this can be an annual featured keynote, like the “State of the Dolphin.” The thriving community is one of the reasons MySQL is the world’s most popular database.

Welcome to the 142nd edition of Log Buffer, the weekly review of database blogs.

The SQL Server ’sphere was a busy place this week. On In Recovery… Paul S. Randall posted his latest straw poll, this time looking into your practices around transaction log size management.

Linchi Shea observed, “In a multi-process/multi-thread system, locking is central to maintain data consistency and keep things in order.  . . . [We] need to begin with understanding the locking behavior of the basic building blocks offered by SQL Server . . .  [One] would think that the basic locking behavior …

The Sunday before the MySQL User Conference is always full of trying to meet up with new or old friends, even if your flight lands after dinnertime. With that in mind, the very first event of the week is MySQL Camp’s “Games Day”.

From 12 noon until midnight on the Mezzanine of the Santa Clara Hyatt Hotel (adjoining the Santa Clara Convention Center), there will be an informal games day. The list of games that are definitely appearing are on the MySQL Forge at:

http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/MySQLConf2009SundayNotes

There is still one game I would like to see appear (Set), though there is plenty to keep folks busy — board games, a puzzle, decks of cards, even building toys. I’ll probably be knitting, so if you are the crafty sort and can bring your craft with you that’s …

Welcome to the 141st edition of Log Buffer, the weekly review of database blogs. The Oracle bloggers were especially chatty this week, so let’s start with them.

Rob van Wijk wrote a fine post about choosing between SQL and PL/SQL, defending his choice of straight-up SQL for logic. Naturally, this triggered a lot of discussion, as well as a few responses from other blogs. Chen Shapira framed her response in a question about code life-cycle: would you rather maintain SQL or PL/SQL?

H. Tonguç …