I'm not the only one to have noticed this, but I spent a sufficient amount of time banging my head against a wall finding this out that I thought it important to make more people aware of this.

While trying to validate new database hardware we were seeing some serious performance issues in production.  Most MySQL benchmarks using sysbench or pt-playback couldn't reproduce it, but a simple sysbench 16 threaded filio test on the mysql partition showed about 1/3 the throughput we would expect.   The fact that much of the hardware was new as well as the OS we were using made tracking down the cause difficult (changing from CentOS 5.5 to Scientific Linux 6.)

Finally some of our ops people working on different systems started noticing similar issues, and they uncovered the XFS issue.  Sure enough -- when took existing hardware, upgraded to SL6 and ran the same sysbench filio test we immediately saw a …

When you enable binlogs in the my.cnf file you can either set the log-bin flag to true, or you can set it to a path and file name prefix such as this:

[mysqld]
log-bin=/path/to/binlogs/mysql-binlog

This changes the default location where binlogs are stored.  The problem is that when you connect to mysql there is currently no way to query the server to find out if that path has been changed, and what it currently is.  This means you can't be sure where any server's binlogs are actually stored.
Ok, so they're not really missing, but it's a known issue that mysql doesn't make them easy to find.  The server obviously knows the path internally, but it doesn't make this information available. Bug #35231 has been open on this issue since 2008 and is currently being ignored.

Why?
This is such a trivial change …

The MySQL Enterprise Backup 3.8.1 release's main goal was support MySQL 5.6 server. But also beyond that primary goal MEB team added some valuable new options and features to ensure you'll get most from the new features in 5.6 as well. At a glance, here are some of the highlights,

MEB copy of InnoDB undo log tablespaces

MySQL 5.6 introduces a new feature to store undo logs in separate files called as undo tablespaces for improved performance. These undo tablespaces are logically part of system  tablespace. All the commands associated with MEB - "backup", "apply-log" and "copy-back"  now take care of the undo tablespaces in the same way as they process the system tablespace. MEB now supports innodb_undo_directory[logs][tablespace] option variables. When backup is executed, undo datafiles (up to number specified by innodb_undo_tablespaces) are stored in same directory as the datafiles of system tablespace. During …

The deadline is fast approaching to submit proposals for the Birds of a Feather Sessions (BOFs) and the Lightning Talks (presented during the Wednesday Evening Networking Reception) for the Percona Live MySQL Conference and Expo 2013. Applications for the DotOrg Pavilion close soon as well. The deadline is February 24th for all three opportunities so submit your proposals now!

Lightning Talks are 5-minute presentations focusing on one key point in the MySQL world, technical or not. Lighthearted, fun or otherwise entertaining submissions are highly welcome. They might include a new …

First, congratulations Oracle on the GA of MySQL 5.6! Well done!

In this post I walkthrough the features of the first two alpha versions of MariaDB 10.0. The first, 10.0.0-alpha, which was made available in November, and 10.0.1-alpha that saw daylight yesterday. I will go through the features by placing them in the following categories:

• MariaDB 10.0-only Features (features that aren’t in MySQL 5.6)
• MariaDB 10.0 Merged Features (features merged from MySQL 5.6)
• MariaDB 10.0 Reimplemented Features (features reimplemented from features in MySQL 5.6)
• MariaDB 5.x Features now in MySQL 5.6 (features introduced in earlier MariaDB versions which have now been introduced in MySQL 5.6)
• MariaDB 5.x Features Backported from MySQL 5.6 (features introduced in earlier MariaDB versions which were backports of features from MySQL 5.6 development …

One of our training courses has a section covering MySQL's Memcached API, and how it works. In the discussion, there's a line that goes like this:

 "A key is similar to a primary key in a table, and a value is similar to a second column in the same table"

For someone well versed in database tables but not so much in key-value stores, that sentence might take a bit of grasping. So, let's break it down.

An Example Key/Value Store 

Imagine the table kvstore has a column key and a column value. Also imagine that we've set up the Memcached plugin in MySQL and configured it to use that table and those columns as its store. I won't get into that bit for now, but trust me, it's not that hard.

You might be familiar with statements like this:

REPLACE INTO kvstore (key, value) VALUES ('X', 'Y');
SELECT value FROM kvstore WHERE key='X';

Now imagine you want to be …

I had the pleasure to actively participate in the MySQL & Friends Devroom at FOSDEM. Met old acquaintances and made new ones. I even got the chance to speak for roughly 30 minutes... And the room was packed. On top of that I also did some "booth duty", which is the same to say that I spent sometime at the Oracle's stand (together with Sveta, Lars and Lenka), where I took the opportunity to reach out to people. It was my first time at FOSDEM, and I was much impressed by the large amount of people and by the different number of brands and open source companies represented. A big thank you to Frederic, who organized the devroom event. Since I am sure he had some help, a big thank you to everyone who helped Frederic as well. It was great to be there and discuss MySQL (replication) with a lot of different people!

Dynamic Data Masking is an emerging technology that provides real-time data masking in changing environments, typically in production databases.

GreenSQL Dynamic Data Masking enables you to mask or randomize any sensitive information stored on Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL and PostgreSQL databases.

Join our live webinar and demo where David Maman,  security industry guru and GreenSQL Co-Founder and  CTO, will explain:

• What is Real-Time Dynamic Data Masking?
• How to dramatically reduce the risk of a data breach?
• How to better comply with regulations?
• How to enforce real-time dynamic data masking?
• How to provide a security …

The latest releases of MySQL Sandbox, in addition to deal with minor bugs, have mostly been necessary because of compatibility issues in MySQL, both 5.5 and 5.6.

When I found that MySQL 5.6 has some InnoDB tables inside the 'mysql' schema, I had to change the way that the sandbox used to remove all contents (the ./clear command.)

To achieve a smooth clean up, MySQL Sandbox now performs a dump of the mysql schema, and uses that saved data to restore the schema after a complete wipeout.

Unfortunately, when 5.5.30 was released, this operation resulted in a warning, due to a behavioral change.

After a careful change, and about 1200 unit tests, the latest version of …

WordPress-on-S3 makes professional website administration as easy as pie.

OblakSoft is pleased to announce availability of the ready-to-run WordPress-on-S3 / Yapixx AMI with enhanced configuration, performance, and website administration features.  Now website owners can use Webmin and phpMyAdmin for secure website administration over the Internet, and pre-configure Cloud Storage Connection for the instance.

• System administration
• Database administration
• …