As I mentioned in my previous entry, InnoDB has it’s own auto increment counter which it uses to generate the next value for the database kernel (as we call it in Drizzle). At Drizzle project, we came across a suspicion that InnoDB doesn’t increment it’s internal counter on row updates. So what can this mean to you as a database admin?

Well, consider this simple table:

CREATE TABLE t1 (
    a INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
    val INT
) ENGINE=InnoDB;

and the following statements:

drizzle> INSERT INTO t1 (val) VALUES (1);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.01 sec)
 
drizzle> UPDATE t1 SET a=4 WHERE a=1;
Query OK, 1 row …

I’ve been using the MySQL Workbench 5.1 beta for the past few days now, and I’m wondering how I designed databases without it.

Okay, so that’s a pretty strong statement, but I’m genuinely happy with it. 5.1 has fixed my main problem with 5.0, in that the EER diagram mode was horribly slow to render, now it’s all nice and smooth. The ability to easily visualise tables and their relationships makes design very simple.

In fact, I really only have one (minor) complaint, the ability to export without foreign keys would be nice. Sometimes you just don’t want to deal with the performance hit.

That’s about it. Go and download the OSS edition for free now, have a play around. Make it your Friday afternoon experiment. I promise you’ll like it.

Today I spoke with Farhan “Frank” Mashraqi, former Fotolog DBA, now working at a startup, NetEdge, working on social analytics. He’s talking about the two sessions he’s giving next week at the MySQL Conference & Expo 2009, as well as the benefits of being at the MySQL Conference & Expo.

He’s giving two talks:

1. Hadoop and MySQL: Friends with Benefits in where he will tell you about how you can combine data sets and queries, some of which run on Hadoop, and others which run on MySQL, but eventually probably end up in MySQL (he works on this cool stuff at NetEdge, the startup he’s currently attached to). …

I am calling it.  The death of the PHP die function.  Now, I have no actual authority to do so.  My PHP CVS karma does not extend that far.  And I doubt it will actually get removed despite it being nothing more than an alias for exit now.

No, what I would like to call a death to is the usage of die such as:

$conn = mysql_connect($server, $user, $pass) or die("Could not connect to MySQL, but needed to tell the whole world");
I don't know who thought that particular usage was good, but they need to .... no, that is harsh.  I just really wish they had never done that.

So, what should you use?  Well, there are a couple of options depending on what context you are working in and whether or not the failure is actually catastrophic.

…

What is open source, production-quality, supported by a large vibrant community, and comes with full enterprise support ? - GlassFish and MySQL.

Did you know that GlassFish ...

• is the only open-source Java EE 5 compliant Application Server
• can be used to deploy Rails, Grails, and Django applications
• has 13x better price/performance than Dell/HP, and therefore a much lower TCO
• has an easy-to-use and intuitive web-based administration console
• has enterprise features like clustering/high availability, .NET-interoperable Web services, ...

Are you attending MySQL Users Conference 2009 …

What is open source, production-quality, supported by a large vibrant community, and comes with full enterprise support ? - GlassFish and MySQL.

Did you know that GlassFish ...

• is the only open-source Java EE 5 compliant Application Server
• can be used to deploy Rails, Grails, and Django applications
• has 13x better price/performance than Dell/HP, and therefore a much lower TCO
• has an easy-to-use and intuitive web-based administration console
• has enterprise features like clustering/high availability, .NET-interoperable Web services, ...

Are you attending MySQL Users Conference 2009 …

Image by MethoxyRoxy via Flickr

I had a problem with slave replication, every now and then we would get an error which manually had to be resolved

We used Set Global sql_slave_skip_counter = 1; start slave;

You might also get some of those when you set up a new slave using a mysqldump. If from the time you started the mysqldump and by the time it finished, some lines were added to the bin logs or you started it at the wrong position, then you would get some duplication errors.

While it looks concerning, don’t panic. You can fix it by skipping the lines that are duplicates, although it’s not an ideal situation.

Now if you want to completely avoid errors, or specifically duplicates and you are sure that the odd ones that …

I finally figured out how to use Google Maps and made this map of where some of the different users and service providers of opentaps are located:

There are probably quite a few that I've missed, but this should give you the general idea. My how we've grown!

There is going to be a lot of InnoDB news at the MySQL Conference and Expo … including some surprises! Wear your bird costume (or not), but please join us for a Birds of a Feather session about InnoDB products and technology at 7:30pm Wednesday, in Ballroom C.

You’ll have a chance to dig deeper into the topics you’ve learned about for the first time at the conference, and can chat with Heikki Tuuri, Calvin Sun and Ken Jacobs and others about all things InnoDB.

Largely unstructured and open, we’ll discuss the latest version of the InnoDB Plugin and answer your technology questions about the newest InnoDB products. It’s also a great opportunity to network with other users and experts in InnoDB technology and learn about how to get the best out of MySQL for your application. Come ask questions and get answers about this technology that is so critical to YOUR success!

See you there!