With MySQL Cluster 7.2 we introduced native support for the Memcache protocol. From the very start of the project we knew there would be some challenges in storing large values — “blobs” that are bigger than the maximum NDB row size — from the Memcached server. Coincidentally in 7.2 we also increased this maximum row size from 8000 bytes to 14,000 bytes. This helped out a little bit when the first preview release became available, back in September,and there was still no way to access blobs through memcached.

We had always wanted the memcached server to be event-driven and to use asynchronous APIs on the back-end, but we had no asynchronous API for blob access. Reading a blob is a multi-step operation: it requires reading first a header row, and then a series of blob parts from a (hidden) parts table. The existing blob implementation, known as NdbBlob, encapsulates all of this into a single synchronous, blocking, API call.

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When I was at MySQL, I took for granted that pretty much every website I used had software at the back of it that was basically MySQL. It was a nice feeling. MariaDB is a lot younger, so when I was in Paris and had to make a payment for the taxi I was sitting in, I smiled a little when I saw that Paybox Services was processing my transaction. Some might recall that Paybox Services deployed MariaDB, since the 5.2 release. It was a wonderful feeling that somewhere in that transaction, MariaDB was behind it!

Paybox wanted some features inside of MySQL 5.5 and have been holding out for MariaDB 5.5. Its kind of nice to see that today, …

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of MariaDB 5.5.22-rc. MariaDB 5.5.22 is the first release candidate (RC) release in the 5.5 series and follows the MariaDB 5.5.20-alpha and 5.5.21-beta releases. We hope to follow it up soon with a Stable (GA) 5.5 release.

MariaDB 5.5 is a merge of MariaDB 5.3 and MySQL 5.5 with some limited additional bug fixes. Please see the What is MariaDB 5.5 page for an overview of MariaDB 5.5.

The Release Notes page has some notes on the release. There is also a Changelog available for those who are interested.

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Following the availability of MySQL 5.5 on Oracle Linux 6 with the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel, MySQL 5.5 is now also available on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (RHEL 6) and Oracle Linux 6 with the Red Hat compatible kernel.

MySQL users can download MySQL 5.5 Community Edition binaries for Oracle Linux and Red Hat Linux 6 here.

MySQL customers can rely on Oracle Premier Support for MySQL when using the MySQL database on either Oracle Linux or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

In addition to offering direct Linux support to customers running RHEL6, Oracle Linux 6, or a combination of both, Oracle also provides Oracle Linux 6 binaries, update and erratas for free via http://public-yum.oracle.com.

Over the last few months, on different systems I have been modifying the ib_log_files and their sizes, increasing them due to the increase in load they have been experiencing. These files are used to contain information which has been committed, but not yet written to the ibdata files or the individual .ibd files if using innodb_file_per_table.  And these files are used on recovery if the server shuts down unexpectedly during recovery processing to get the system back into a consistent state again.

The checkpointing in MySQL is well documented, but I was surprised just how much difference the throughput can change for heavy write applications if the sizes of these files is changed.  It may seem obvious but given how disruptive it can be to shut down a system, change these values and start it up again, this process is not done frequently.  These files help improve performance as changes are written linearly into the file, …

Weathers are changing, clocks are being adjusted too, and the changes at the technological fronts are as usual rapid, frequent and over-whelming. Keeping up with such rapid-fire changes is a project in itself. In database triangle of Oracle, MySQL, and SQL Server; patches, updates, features, tricks, and tips are booming and so is this Log [...]

Yesterday we ran a webinar discussing the demands of next generation web services and how blending the best of relational and NoSQL technologies enables developers and architects to deliver the agility, performance and availability needed to be successful.

Attendees posted a number of great questions to the MySQL developers, serving to provide additional insights into areas like auto-sharding and cross-shard JOINs, replication, performance, client libraries, etc. So I thought it would be useful to post those below, for the benefit of those unable to attend the webinar.

Before getting to the Q&A, there are a couple of other resources that maybe useful to those looking at NoSQL capabilities within MySQL:

- On-Demand webinar

- …

Percona is glad to announce the release of Percona XtraBackup 1.9.2 on 28th March 2012. Downloads are available from our download site here. This is a late BETA release in the process of going towards Percona XtraBackup 2.0.0.

This is a BETA quality release and is not inteded for production. If you want a high quality, Generally Available release, you should use the current Stable version – currently 1.6.5 in the 1.6 series at the time of writing.

The 1.9.x version numbers will be used to distinguish between pre-release versions of PerconaXtraBackup 2.0 and the Generally Available final release.

If you wish to run pre-release Percona software, you can use our …

Percona is glad to announce the release of Percona Server 5.5.21-25.1 on March 30, 2012 (Downloads are available here and from the Percona Software Repositories).

Based on MySQL 5.5.21, including all the bug fixes in it, Percona Server 5.5.21-25.1 is now the current stable release in the 5.5 series. All of Percona‘s software is open-source and free, all the details of the release can be found in the 5.5.21-25.1 milestone at Launchpad.

We are doing another release based on MySQL 5.5.21 as …

Most of the Nagios plugins included with the Percona Monitoring Plugins are purpose-built for specific scenarios that I found in my research to be frequent, severe, or subtle causes of problems in MySQL systems. They are intentionally not generic because I wanted to focus on doing one thing with each plugin, and doing it excellently. This makes the plugins easier to set up and use, and I believe it should help avoid some of the common problems such as spammy alerts.

There is one “generic, flexible” plugin, however, which you can use for fairly arbitrary checks of status counters and variables. This is the …