ChatGPT is the hottest topic in the tech world right now. One story even says that ChatGPT has passed Google’s Level 3 programming interview.  I wondered, does that mean ChatGPT is ready to replace MySQL DBAs, too? No. Let me show you why.

Recently, one of our clients was considering encrypting their data at rest using the Percona file-based keyring plugin. To make the process more secure, they considered removing the local keyring_file after MySQL started. So even if someone gets host access, the data files are still protected because they do not have access to the master key used to encrypt the keys for the tables running Encryption at Rest.

Let ChatGPT try its hand at MySQL administration

Let’s see what ChatGPT will say.

I asked ChatGPT the …

While the LAMP stack – Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP – is not the dominant platform it was a decade ago, there are still many websites that depend on it. One of the pillars of this quartet had a milestone last week when PHP 8.0 passed into End Of Life status. While it will still have limited security issue support for another year, 8.0 should be phased out of your environments.

By the way, 8.1 has another year until it reaches End of Life status.

So please update your PHP 8.0 as soon as you can, double check the connector you are using to access your database is updated too, and make sure you are ready for 8.1’s future.

And make sure that if you are currently running MySQL 5.7 that you upgrade by October 2023 when it too reaches End of Life.

Another day, another company announces it changed its license away from open source while claiming “We Believe In A Model Of Sustainable Open Source.”

I’m not sure about you, but this rings to me as similar to an alleged quote about the Vietnam War: “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”

What Lightbend’s CEO and Founder, Jonas Boner, really means is that they have decided that they do not believe an open source license (Apache 2.0) suits their business goals best any longer, and a proprietary, source available license (BSL) will be a better fit.

As an entrepreneur and business founder myself, I understand business is hard. Often, your choices are limited, especially if you’ve taken other …

With modern application design, systems are becoming more diverse, varied and have more components than ever before. Developers are often forced to become master chefs adding the ingredients from dozens of different technologies and blending them together to create something tasty and amazing. But with so many different ingredients, it is often difficult to understand how the individual ingredients interact with each other. The more diverse the application, the more likely it is that some seemingly insignificant combination of technology may cause cascading effects.

Many people I talk to have hundreds if not thousands of different libraries, APIs, components, and services making up the systems they support. In this type of environment, it is very difficult to know what small thing could add up to something much bigger. Look at some of the more recent …

In previous TAM Enterprise Experiences posts, we have outlined typical aspects of utilizing MySQL in an Enterprise environment. One thing we have not yet covered is the topic of database encryption, both from the standpoint of business requirements as well as some of the more technical aspects of encryption.

In this post, we will cover:

• Common enterprise compliance requirements
• Types of MySQL encryption
• Choosing the right encryption
• Vault

Common Compliance Requirements

Beyond the obvious security concerns with sensitive data, most enterprise businesses also need to meet various compliance requirements, with the compliance requirement(s) dependent on the country the business is located in, the type of business, and the type of data being stored. Note that in all cases, the onus is on the business to protect the data based on these compliance requirements. Some of …

Our latest Solution Brief uses our relationship with Patreon to detail the ways that Percona services work together to provide customers with a complete database infrastructure solution.

Last year Patreon enlisted Percona’s help with their MySQL databases. Utilizing the full range of Percona Services (Managed Services, Support, Consulting, and Training) has allowed Patreon to make the most of their database infrastructure.

Percona worked with …

Percona Training Is Here for You!

Percona’s Training and Education Department wants you! For the past three years, Percona has quietly been delivering world-class training all over the globe, to companies large and small. We are in full force and ready to spread our knowledge directly to your organization to make your staff the absolute best they can become.

As you probably know, Percona has been one of the top leaders in the open source database space for over ten years. Our experts are exactly that: experts. Our MySQL and open source database training programs leverage the cumulative knowledge and best practices gained from our years of experience working on real-world issues and solving problems for our customers. When you enroll in our courses, we transfer our knowledge and experience to you and your team.

Why Should My Company Invest in Training?

This is a three-part blog series that focuses on dealing with an unexpected high traffic event as it is happening. Part one can be found here, and part two can be found here.   13. Configure MySQL Server Properly

Complexity:Medium
Potential Impact: High 

A poorly configured MySQL Server can cause severe issues, especially under high load during a traffic spike, yet getting the basics right is not that hard. While MySQL Server has more than 400 variables you can tune, you rarely need to change more than 10-20 of them to get 95% of the possible performance for your workload.

…

This is a three-part blog series that focuses on dealing with an unexpected high traffic event as it is happening. Part one can be found here and part three can be found here. 7. Get More Memory

Complexity: Low
Potential Impact: High

If your data does not fit into memory well, your MySQL performance is likely to be severely limited. If your data already fits in well, adding even more memory will not provide any performance improvements.

Even when you’re running on very fast storage, such as Intel Optane or directly Attached NVMe Storage, accessing data in memory is still more than an order …

This is a three-part blog series. Part two is located here, and part three can be found here.

There was no reason to plan for it, but the load on your system increased 100%, 300%, 500%, and your MySQL database has to support it. This is a reality many online systems have to deal with these days. This series focuses on dealing with the unexpected high traffic event as it is happening.

There are also a lot of things you can do proactively, which we covered in “Prepare Your Databases for High Traffic on …