A lightweight, secure, and extensible MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for MySQL designed to bridge the gap between relational databases and large language models (LLMs).

I’m releasing a new open-source project: mysql-mcp-server, a lightweight server that connects MySQL to AI tools via the Model Context Protocol (MCP). It’s designed to make MySQL safely accessible to language models, structured, read-only, and fully auditable.

This project started out of a practical need: as LLMs become part of everyday development workflows, there’s growing interest in using them to explore database schemas, write queries, or inspect real data. But exposing production databases directly to AI tools is a risk, especially without guardrails.

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Subtitle: Schema design, embedding workflows, hybrid search, and performance tradeoffs explained.

Quick Recap from Part 1

In Part 1, we introduced the MyVector plugin — a native extension that brings vector embeddings and HNSW-based approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) search into MySQL. We covered how MyVector supports scoped queries (e.g., WHERE user_id = X) to ensure that semantic search remains relevant, performant, and secure in real-world multi-tenant applications.

Now in Part 2, we move from concept to implementation:

• How to store and index embeddings
• How to design embedding workflows
• How hybrid (vector + keyword) search works
• How HNSW compares to brute-force search
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Semantic Search with SQL Simplicity and Operational Control

Introduction

Vector search is redefining how we work with unstructured and semantic data. Until recently, integrating it into traditional relational databases like MySQL required external services, extra infrastructure, or awkward workarounds. That changes with the MyVector plugin — a native vector indexing and search extension purpose-built for MySQL.

Whether you’re enhancing search for user-generated content, improving recommendation systems, or building AI-driven assistants, MyVector makes it possible to store, index, and search vector embeddings directly inside MySQL — with full support for SQL syntax, indexing, and filtering.

What Is MyVector?

The MyVector plugin adds native support …

Semi-sync Replication is a plugin available for mysql which allows you to create more durable replication topologies.  For instance you can ensure that in the event of a master crash that at least one of your replicas has all transaction currently written to the master so that when you promote, you know you're not missing any data.

That's a huge simplification.

What's the downside?  Write speed.  If a transaction on your master have to wait until a replica acknowledges it has that transaction, then there is going to be some delay.  Not only that, but your network latency between the two points matters a lot.  If you want greater durability, the cost is performance.

It's important to note that the master doesn't wait until the replica actually runs the transaction on the …

Stephen O'Grady at RedMonk has launched a new Podcast called Hark. In his second episode, he and Agile programming guru Kent Beck have a thoughtful discussion around the ideas in O'Grady's book "The Software Paradox."  Even though software is "eating the world" and become more widespread and strategic, its economic value appears to be declining rapidly. Certainly, we've seen a shift in the …

I am potentially one of the least technical people in my generation. I’m 30 and I am afraid of my cellphone, my laptop, Netflix, the microwave…. Okay, afraid is maybe a strong word, but baffled by them at the very least.

In high school, while my classmates wrote most of their papers and assignments on the computer, I insisted on writing everything out by hand and only typed it out afterwards if absolutely required. It wasn’t that I had issues with typing – my mom who worked as an administrator for many years made sure that I learned to type from a very young age and I type quickly with a reasonable amount of accuracy. I just felt that writing by hand kept me more “connected” to the words I penned. Simply, my name is Sarah and I am a Luddite.

After high school I studied journalism for a couple of years and then entered the workforce into a number of different jobs, such as in sales and marketing and it became necessary …

A good portion of the startups I meet and advise want to use the newest, hottest technology to build something that’s cool, but not technologically groundbreaking. I have yet to meet a startup building a time machine, teleporter or quantum social network that would actually require some amazing new tech. They have awesome new ideas with down-to-earth technical requirements, so I kept wondering why they choose this shiny (and risky) new stuff when all they need is a good ol’ trustworthy database. I think it’s because many assume that building the latest and greatest needs the latest and greatest!

It turns out that’s only one of three bad reasons (traps) why people go for the shiny and new. Reason two is people mistakenly assume older stuff is slow, not feature rich or won’t scale. “MySQL is sluggish,” they say. “Java is slow,” I’ve heard. “Python won’t scale,” they claim. None of it’s true.

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I helped a charity to rebuild a MySQL server and to restore a database with a lot of data of longblob type in the last two days. Fortunately there was a dump backup file for the database in question.

However, tables with longblob column(s) were not defined with “ROW_FORMAT=COMPRESSED”. I’d like to restore that database with row compression before inserting the data. Therefore I need to modify the dump sql file. The problem is that the file is 2.5 GB and the server only has 4 GB memory. So editing it is a challenge. Fortunately, Linux has sed to save the day. Don’t you love open source free software?

I am power Vi/Vim user, so I am familiar with sed and have used it in the past. But there are still a few things that I searched around for quick answers. So I’ll record noteworthy points here. I couldn’t remember how many times my own past blog entries helped me over the years. And I hope you’ll find this helpful too! …

The wild and crazy guys over at S&T Geotronics, James Sanderson and Marc Tessier, have decided to go full tilt with a Kickstarter version of their DIY Open Enigma Project.  For those who missed the fanfare last year, they were featured on Instructables showing how to build an Arduino-based encryption machine that works exactly like a WWII era Enigma.  You know, the thing that Alan friggin' Turing and his team at …

There is a good article over at Re-Code by ex-Microsoft VP Steven Sinofsky called "The Four Stages of Disruption".  It describes the evolution of products and markets through disruption, drawing from Sinofsky's own insights and also building on the work of Everett Rogers ("The Diffusion of Innovations") and Clayton Christensen ("The …