One thing I have often wondered is just how many MySQL instances exist in the world and what MySQL versions and architectures are in use. We hear of 50,000 windows downloads per day but this is misleading because MySQL is basically bundled with Linux by default or installed from various repositories. Linux servers powers many websites.

In Drizzle we have a proposed plan, the Drizzle Census. From the productive Drizzle Developers Day recently at the 2010 MySQL conference we sat down and created a blueprint, and subsequent high level spec of what we considered this optional plugin should do. We didn’t get as far as I would have liked in a code …

Tokutek’s Bradley did a session on their Fractal Tree Index technology at the MySQL Conference (and an OpenSQL Camp before that – but I wasn’t at that one), and my first thought was: great, now we get to see what and where the magic is. On second thought, I realised you may not want to know.

I know I’m going to be a party pooper here, but I do feel it’s important for people to be aware of the consequences of looking at this stuff (there’s slide PDFs online as well as video), and software patents in general. I reckon Tokutek has done some cool things, but the patents are a serious problem.

Tokutek’s technology has patents pending, and is thus patent encumbered. What does this mean for you? It means that if you look at their “how they did it” info and you happen to code something that later ends up in a related patent lawsuit, you and the company you work for will be liable for triple damages. That’s basic US …

A now-famous quote that I probably don’t need to attribute: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Where is Drizzle in this lifecycle? I’ve been hearing and reading some comments to the tune of “those Drizzle guys think it’s easy to rip MySQL stuff out and start over, wait till they see how hard it’s going to get when the real world sinks in.

Here’s how:

# Install pkg_* tools and the 'pkgin' package manager
$ pkgadd -d http://www.netbsd.org/~sketch/TNFpkgsrc-x86.pkg all

# Add tools to PATH
$ PATH=/opt/pkg/sbin:/opt/pkg/bin:$PATH

# Update package repository (akin to 'apt-get update')
$ pkgin up

# Search for a particular package (you can use regexp)
$ pkgin search ^ap.*python 

# Install it
$ pkgin install ap22-py25-python

# Update all packages (akin to 'apt-get dist-upgrade')
$ pkgin full-upgrade

# How many packages are available?
$ pkgin avail | wc -l
   4970

Ok, so the headline might be slightly mis-leading, this isn’t really apt-get but a tool which is very similar. This is work which builds upon my previous post using pkgsrc to build binary packages on Solaris.

See http://imil.net/pkgin/ for more information …

Recently I came across this new Massachusetts state data protection security law that has been passed and wondering if anyone took an initiative to fix their data storage, especially if it deals with MA residents. You can find more about this law from Google Search. One thing that might make a difference for database vendors [...]

For those who've seen my presentation on MySQL HA, you already know that I often use a multimaster setup with a meta OCF resource that groups my favoured MySQL instance with the service ip , using a meta resource means that pacemaker monitors mysql, but it doesn't actually manage it. It's an approach that works for us.

One of the other approaches I will be looking at soon is the freshly released OCF resource that Florian announced last week.

Back in the days our approach meant we didn't have to use clone resources, which you might remember being pretty buggy in the v2 era, not wanting to use clons resources isn't really a valid reason anymore these days . I've also frequently mentioned the combination of using DRBD and MultiMaster replication, using this set of OCF resource makes that a lot more easy ..

…

MySQL Connector/Net 6.1.4, a new version of the all-managed .NET driver for MySQL has been released. This is our latest GA release and is suitable for use in all scenarios against servers ranging from version 4.1 to 5.5!

It is now available in source and binary form from [http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/net/6.1.html] and mirror sites (note that not all mirror sites may be up to date at this point of time – if you can’t find this version on some mirror, please try again later or choose another download site.)

This is a maintenance release and includes many bug fixes.  Please review the change log for details.

Thank you for using our product!

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MySQL Connector/Net 6.0.6, a new version of the all-managed .NET driver for MySQL has been released. This is a maintenance release and is approved for use in all situations.

It is now available in source and binary form from [http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/net/6.0.html] and mirror sites (note that not all mirror sites may be up to date at this point of time - if you can’t find this version on some mirror, please try again later or choose another download site.)

There are lots of bug fixes in this release so please review the changelog.

Thank you!

Here’s the talk I presented at the MySQL User Conference. This talk is a fairly technical talk on how fractal trees work.

You can find this talk and other mostly technical material at http://tokutek.com/technology/.