[Update: I found the magic javascript links that show old releases of sysbench.]

Sysbench is an application that can be used to benchmark different system parameters and also includes support for testing MySQL directly. Google has released a patch for sysbench that adds a lot of new OLTP tests. It’s great for testing MySQL and for drag races against Mark’s tests. Their patch seems to apply against sysbench 0.4.10. I was able to find sysbench 0.4.10 but it wasn’t easy so I’ve ported Google’s patch to sysbench 0.4.12.

Grab the patch here.

Last month when I've published my results obtained with PostgreSQL 8.3.7 on db_STRESS benchmark I was surprised they were much lower comparing to MySQL, as well some signs alarmed me there is something goes wrong with PostgreSQL... So, once it was possible, I took my time and prepared another testing on the same M5000 server I published MySQL results last week.

I would say I discovered a lot of new things benchmarking PostgreSQL ! I'm not kidding :-) And without going too much in detail, the main gain seems to me of MySQL over PostgreSQL was a lower cost on executing a single query. The query in question was the second SELECT in db_STRESS.

SELECT-2 execution time:

• MySQL 5.4: 0.44ms
• PostgreSQL 8.4: 1.3ms
• PostgreSQL 8.4 prepared statement: 0.98ms

Again, if PostgreSQL being slower on a single query scaled much more far on say 24 cores - it'll be not really a problem. But …

Normal geocoding is the process of taking an address and converting it into latitude and longitude. Reverse geocoding goes the other direction; given a latitude and longitude we want to know the closest street address.

Google Maps API, Yahoo Maps, Microsoft, GeoNames.Org and others can provide both these services, but they either cost, or have restrictive terms of service that makes them unavailable for high volume applications. See Geo::Coder::US (for US addresses only). This uses a local data source, and requires you to download the data from the US Census manually. It can import a format known as …

1. Scientists Without Borders -- "Mobilizing Science, Improving Lives". mobilize and coordinate science-based activities that improve quality of life in the developing world. The research community, aid agencies, NGOs, public-private partnerships, and a wide variety of other institutions are already promoting areas such as global health, agricultural progress, and environmental well-being, but current communication gaps restrict their power. Organizations and individuals do not always know about one another's endeavors, needs, or availability, which limits the ability to forge meaningful connections and harness resources. This situation is especially striking in light of the growing realization that integrated rather than focused approaches are crucial for addressing key challenges such as extreme poverty and the glaring health …

Using a write cache protected by battery (BBWC) is well known and one of the best practices in RDBMS world. But I have frequently seen situations that people do not set write cache properly. Sometimes they just forget to enable write cache. Sometimes write cache is disabled even though they say they set properly.

Make sure that BBWC is enabled. If not enabled, you will be able to easily get better performance by just enabling it. The following is a DBT-2 example.

Write cache is disabled:

# iostat -xm 10
avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
        21.16    0.00    6.14   29.77    0.00   42.93

Device:         rrqm/s   wrqm/s   r/s   w/s    rMB/s
sdb               2.60   389.01 283.12 47.35     4.86
wMB/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz   await  svctm  %util
2.19    43.67     4.89   14.76   3.02  99.83


Write cache is enabled:

# iostat -xm 10 …

… subject says it all. There will be a webinar on the driver on Wednesday, 20 20, 2009: 10:00 Pacific time. Register Now.

We have just finished writing the slides. From the contents:

• The reasoning behind Connector/C++’s development
  • Internal customers
• What’s included in Connector/C++
  • Architecture
  • API
  • Platforms
  • Installation
  • Portability
• How you can use it to ease your C++ development
  • Tooling
  • Connection Properties
  • Buffered vs. unbuffered result sets
  • Prepared Statements …

… subject says it all. There will be a webinar on the driver on Wednesday, 20 20, 2009: 10:00 Pacific time. Register Now.

We have just finished writing the slides. From the contents:

• The reasoning behind Connector/C++’s development
  • Internal customers
• What’s included in Connector/C++
  • Architecture
  • API
  • Platforms
  • Installation
  • Portability
• How you can use it to ease your C++ development
  • Tooling
  • Connection Properties
  • Buffered vs. unbuffered result sets
  • Prepared Statements …

As the recipient of the 2009 MySQL Community Member of the Year award I received a MySQL crystal ball. While it looks good in my bookcase, unfortunately the best advice I can offer during this time of uncertainty is “watch this space”.

A number of topics where information is still very much unknown and I’m either asked about, or am following includes:

• The Oracle acquisition of Sun, owner of MySQL.
• MySQL 5.4 Alpha release and schedule for production release
• The end of MySQL 5.0 Community/Enterprise split
• The future of Falcon in MySQL 6.0?

Thanks to Julian Cash of the Human Creativity Project of his photograph at the 2009 MySQL Conference.

…

The announcement last month of Oracle to acquire Sun continues to warrant a lot of discussion over exactly what Oracle will do with MySQL. Only time will tell what will happen with the official product, however it is important to remember that MySQL is GPL, there will always be a free version of MySQL available for popular LAMP stack products such as WordPress and Drupal and new and existing startup’s will continue to use MySQL.

This announcement will see Oracle resources begin to better understand and evaluate MySQL. As a resident MySQL Expert, I also have a strong background in Oracle having also worked for Oracle Corporation. I have also delivered several successful one day and half day workshops on MySQL/Oracle related content including:

• 2009 - Best Practices …

So lets test some different configurations and try and build some best practices around Multiple SSD’s:

Which is better? Raid 5 or Raid 10?

As with regular disks, Raid 10 seems to performance better ( accept for pure reads ).  I did get a lot of movement test to test like with the 67% read test -vs- the 75% or 80% tests. But all in all RAID 10 seemed to be the optimal config.

Should you enable the controller cache? One of the things I have found in my single drive tests is that “dumb” controllers tend to give better performance numbers then “smart” controllers. Really expensive controllers tend to have extra logic to compensate for the limitations of traditional disk. So I decided to play with some of the controller options. The obvious one is cache on the controller.

Some tests showed substantially better performance when the disk cache was disabled ( both read & write ).

If better …