I have just released PBXT 1.0.09 RC3. Besides bug fixes (details in the release notes), this version includes 2 Beta features:

• XA/2-Phase Commit support
• Native online backup Driver

XA support has been around MySQL for quite a while, and we all know of it usefulness, for example when sharding. So I was surprised to find a bug in the XA recovery: Bug #47134. Contrary to what is reported, the crash can also occur when using XA with just the default engines installed, so watch out for that one (the good news: the bug fix is simple).

Online backup is really cool! I have heard that it may soon be released in a coming version of 5.4, so lets hope that this is true.

In a little test, I did a backup of a 10GB database in 49.26 seconds! …

The binaries for MySQL Cluster 6.3.26 have now been released and can be downloaded from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/cluster/6.3.html

A description of all of the changes (fixes) that have gone into MySQL Cluster 6.3.26 (compared to 6.3.25) can be found in the MySQL_Cluster_6_3_26_ChangeLog.

The binaries for MySQL Cluster 7.0.7 have now been released and can be downloaded from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/cluster/7.0.html

A description of all of the changes (fixes) that have gone into MySQL Cluster 7.0.7 (compared to 7.0.6) can be found in the MySQL Cluster 7.0.7 Change Log.

We’re supporting the OpenSQL Camp, which will be held in Portland on November 14.

One of my objectives for the camp is to make progress on a universal storage engine API, to make it possible to use the same storage engines in MySQL, PostgreSQL, Ingres, or any other database. I’m also looking forward to hearing other people’s great ideas.

After OpenSQLcamp, I’ll be attending Supercomputing’09. Supercomputing and database hardware technology seems to be converging. Many of the fastest databases today look like a supercomputer with disks attached. Will there be other kinds of convergence? For example, what kind of convergence will we see between multicore computing and cluster computing? Today we program multicore machines very differently from clusters. I think in the future that difference will vanish.

I have just released a new version of the MySQL plug-in for Oracle Enterprise Manager — MySQL plug-in 1.1.1. This is a long overdue bug fix release.

There are no new features implemented (we have another branch in development) but just fixed number of fairly annoying bugs that I was finally able to reproduce.

The download link is on the plug-in’s home page where you can also find a data-sheet and installation guide.

Here are the changes in the 1.1.1 release:

• Tested with Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control 10g Release 5 (10.2.0.5)
• Fixed the bug with connections not closed properly
• Fixed bug that caused collection to hang and time-out (Net::MySQL bug — not recognizing a final packet in …

For couple of months I have been writing middlewares for database shards, and today I made a presentation covering them.  It includes the following.

• Incline - a trigger and queue based distributed materialized view manager
• Pacific - a set of perl scripts to manage MySQL shards, a MySQL shard can be split into two in less than 10 seconds of write blocking (and no read blocks)
• DBIx::ShardManager - a client API for accessing database shards using Incline and Pacific

With these middlewares I think it is no more difficult to write web applications that runs on database shards.  In fact IMHO it is as easy as writing a webapp that runs on a standalone database.

The presentation slides are available from slideshare.  If you have any question or suggestions, please leave a comment.  Thank you.

…

We’re supporting the OpenSQL Camp, which will be held in Portland on November 14. 

One of my objectives for the camp is to make progress on a universal storage engine API, to make it possible to use the same storage engines in MySQL, PostgreSQL, Ingres, or any other database.  I’m also looking forward to hearing other people’s great ideas.

After OpenSQLcamp, I’ll be attending Supercomputing’09.  Supercomputing and database hardware technology seems to be converging.  Many of the fastest databases today look like a supercomputer with disks attached.  Will there be other kinds of convergence?  For example, what kind of convergence will we see between multicore computing and cluster computing?  Today we program multicore machines very differently from clusters.  I think in the future that difference will vanish.

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 …