Open Query is pleased to sponsor BarCamp Melbourne, a rocking unconference held at UrbanCamp, Royal Park, Melbourne VIC (Australia). If you’re anywhere nearby this coming weekend (12-13 September 2009), you really really want to be there and participate, learn, and enjoy! Open Query’s own Peter Lieverdink (cafuego) will be there.

Barcamps are run at low cost, but of course there are still costs, so it’s very important that lots of businesses and people toss in something to help cover that. If you would like to contribute, just follow the links and Ben or Donna will be happy to help.

The following links load a flash file that will report what version is installed for Adobe Flash and Adobe Shockwave.

Source: Version test for Adobe Flash Player

Source: Test Adobe Shockwave & Flash Players

It is rather typical for systems to start as MyISAM but as system growths to move to Innodb. The reason of the move could be just desire for better data consistency guaranty or being bitten repairing multiple GB MyISAM table few times, though Table Locks is probably the most important issue - with modern multi core servers not only the fact you can't well mix SELECTs and UPDATEs but also the fact only one update can be happening at the time can be the problem, not to mention Key Cache which often becomes serious contention issue.

The problem we often run into during migration is Full Text Search indexes which are not supported for Innodb tables. So what can you do ?

Leave Tables as …

… You are full of shit.

I don’t know how effective your scare-mongering cash-extortion tactics are, but they don’t really help neither your users, nor vendors, nor anyone else.

It all starts when major vulnerability databases start authoritatively spouting out crap like this:

A vulnerability has been reported in MySQL, which can be exploited to compromise a vulnerable system.
The vulnerability is caused due to an unspecified error and can be exploited to cause a buffer overflow. (Secunia)

Or crap like this:

MySQL is prone to a buffer-overflow vulnerability because if fails to perform adequate boundary checks on user-supplied data.
An attacker can leverage this issue to execute arbitrary code within the context of the vulnerable application. Failed exploit attempts will result in a denial-of-service condition. ( …

Well, the answer I always get is "DROP". Then I would say... "what if you wanted to preserve your data?" It is very common for DBAs to think only in terms of what is obviously available in MySQL, ALTER, than all of the tools that are really there. I have been placed in situations in many companies where ALTER was just not the way to go.

Given the amount of MySQL usage throughout the WEB2.0/IT industry and the fact that data sets seem to keep growing... I have come up with a great solution to ALTERING large data sets. Please keep in mind that this is an old feature of MySQL and was a great "lightning speech" at the Percona conference in 04/08.

-- THE TABLE
mysql> use test;
mysql> show table status like 't1'\\\\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
Name: t1
Engine: InnoDB
Version: 10
Row_format: Compact
Rows: …

As a frequent traveler for my MySQL consulting (last 4 weeks were Sydney, San Francisco, New York and Vancouver), I like to keep abreast of any local tech event that includes MySQL that I may be able to attend.

Now there is a consolidated location that you can use, the Open Source Events Calendar. Kudos to the MySQL Community team members Lenz Grimmer and Giuseppe Maxia who have put this together.

We need your help. If you have a local event, please submit your event request. This projects needs the support of all.

You will also find valuable conference information including dates for close of proposals. A great tool for scheduling your upcoming conference year.

If you are having an issue with adding hosts/clients/users on revision 162 it’s because of the INSERT DELAYED sql command being used. Before I release a new version, please change the following lines in the file “system/application/models/mode_app.php” Incorrect code line 70: $sql0="INSERT DELAYED INTO server_list ( line 139: $sql0="INSERT DELAYED INTO `server_client` ( line 177: $sql0="INSERT DELAYED INTO `system_users` [...]

I have a talk scheduled tonight, for anyone who's in the Southern New Hampshire area (or greater Northern New England area): http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.org.user-groups.linux.gnhlug.announce/743

I'll be going over a number of things, time permitting:

* memcached (in general)
* NorthScale's memcached Amazon Machine Images and Virtual Appliance
* moxi - memcached proxy
* memcached Functions for MySQL

I'll run a couple demonstrations with each, first simple memcached usage, then using two memcached instances through moxi, then I'll throw in using them with the UDFs.

I intend to see if the Boston MySQL Users Group would be interested in this talk soon as well.

Update 16-Sep-09: Apparently, all this was true and you can find more details after the announcement that posted here.

OK. It’s not often that I make predictions these days but this was on my mind for a while so here we go. Mind you, I don’t have any confirmed insider information so it’s based on some assumptions, my perspective on Oracle-Sun acquisition and some vibes I can feel in the air.

The rumors are that Oracle Exadata v2 and Oracle Database Machine v2 are going to be announced within few weeks and my take is that it’s going to happen at the Oracle Open World. I don’t think it comes as a surprise to anyone that it will be configured with Oracle Database 11g Release 2.

Moving on to …

Today's the day I fly to Los Angeles to teach a private training class, en route to Santa Clara/San Francisco for our public training workshops next week.

Our Montreal practice teach at Station-C went great - it was an opportunity to do a road test and iron out any kinks in the delivery.

What did I learn in the process?

• Solid examples provide context.  I didn't have the best SHOW GLOBAL STATUS data for the practice teach, but I've edited my slides and our official classes will have much better information.
• Operational issues are one of the most important things people want to hear more information on.  A fair number of students know that dropping an index is not as painless as it should be, but not everyone knows about tools like Flipper and MMM.  It's not the main focus of our InnoDB/XtraDB workshop, but we will cover how to solve these …