This article addresses the benefits provided from database virtualization. Before we proceed however, it is important to explain that database virtualization does NOT mean simply running a DBMS inside a virtual machine.

Database Virtualization, More Than Running a DBMS in a Virtual Machine While running a DBMS in a VM can provide advantages (and disadvantages) it is NOT database virtualization. Typical databases fuse together the data (or I/O) with the processing (CPU utilization) to operate as a single unit. Simply running that single unit in a VM does not provide the benefits detailed below. That is not database virtualization that is merely server virtualization.
An Example of the Database Virtualization Problem Say you have a database handling banking and I have $10MM in the bank (I wish). Now let’s assume that the bank is busy, so it bursts that database across 3 VM nodes in typical cloud-style.  …

This article addresses the benefits provided from database virtualization. Before we proceed however, it is important to explain that database virtualization does NOT mean simply running a DBMS inside a virtual machine.

Database Virtualization, More Than Running a DBMS in a Virtual Machine While running a DBMS in a VM can provide advantages (and disadvantages) it is NOT database virtualization. Typical databases fuse together the data (or I/O) with the processing (CPU utilization) to operate as a single unit. Simply running that single unit in a VM does not provide the benefits detailed below. That is not database virtualization that is merely server virtualization.
An Example of the Database Virtualization Problem Say you have a database handling banking and I have $10MM in the bank (I wish). Now let’s assume that the bank is busy, so it bursts that database across 3 VM nodes in typical cloud-style.  Now …

Everybody loves free. It is the best marketing term one could use. Once you say “FREE” the people come running. Free makes you very popular. Whether you are a politician offering something for free, or a company providing free stuff, you gain instant popularity.

Xeround is shutting down their MySQL Database as a Service (DBaaS) because their free instances, while popular, simply did not convert into sufficient paid instances to support the company. While I am sad to see them fail, because I appreciate the hard work required to deliver database technology, this announcement was not unexpected.
My company was at Percona Live, the MySQL conference, and I had some additional conversations along these same lines. One previously closed source company announced that they were open sourcing their code, it was a very …

Everybody loves free. It is the best marketing term one could use. Once you say “FREE” the people come running. Free makes you very popular. Whether you are a politician offering something for free, or a company providing free stuff, you gain instant popularity.

Xeround is shutting down their MySQL Database as a Service (DBaaS) because their free instances, while popular, simply did not convert into sufficient paid instances to support the company. While I am sad to see them fail, because I appreciate the hard work required to deliver database technology, this announcement was not unexpected. My company was at Percona Live, the MySQL conference, and I had some additional conversations along these same lines. One previously closed source company announced that they were open sourcing their code, it was a very popular …

I'm looking forward to presenting, along with Peter Boros, Jim Cooley and Vipul Sabhaya, at the Percona Live Conference the week of April 22nd where I will be giving two talks about the management of MySQL using Chef (http://www.percona.com/live/mysql-conference-2013/sessions/managing-mysql-chef 24 April 4:30pm - 5:20pm @ Ballroom A) and Red Dwarf, the Openstack project that HPCS is using for DBaaS (http://www.percona.com/live/mysql-conference-2013/sessions/reddwarf-database-service-openstack-project 25 April 11:00am - 11:50am @ Ballroom C).

I wanted to do a Chef talk, despite my on-again, off-again love/hate relationship with Chef (AKA learning process) because for the past year or so, I have …