(one note, I have updated a previous blog post by adding the video for the LISA presentation I gave entitled “How to Stop Hating MySQL”)

OpenSQL Camp is in full swing! Baron Schwartz has done an amazing job organizing this free unconference.

We are well into the 2nd session of the day, and the quality of the presentations is excellent (though I expected that!) and it is always great to see people.

Some pictures….
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Is the projector on? Apparently the projector is lying, there are red lights and screams of "cut the blue one". And suddenly there was light.

The keynote is on the "State of Open Source Databases (just where are we?)", Brian Aker is now with Drizzle at Sun/MySQL.

Summarizing as much of Brian as possible (apologies Brian if I missed anything important):

We have achieved ubiquity - Skype, Google... open source databases are entirely ubiquitous. There is no question about when we will "win" -- we have already won. 

As technology has gone for the increase of computing with CPUs following Moore's Law, and as we have more cores now and databases need to scale on more cores and how can databases use all these cores. What about other types of machines, xbox's etc.?

As time moves on, the amount of data expansion is happening very rapidly. Smugmug, LSST and the Large Hadron …

A summary of a week of travels while I wait for the Open SQL Camp to start with Brian Aker's "State of the Union" Keynote.

Monday

Monday started in Columbus, Ohio spending an excellent two days with Jay Pipes and his family while I received "on-the-job" training from Jay. We had discussions of the importance of MySQL ubiquity, "magic" code and a stirring analysis of blob storage in databases compared to stuffing cows in fridges.

Wednesday

From Columbus I headed off to New York to meet Giuseppe "Datacharmer" Maxia during his US North East Tour (in-progress). The hotel room was literally a closet, but it  was right next to Times Square and the Sun offices on Park Avenue (fully stocked with coffee and tea). I discovered Giuseppe outside …

At LISA 2008, I gave a presentation entitled "How to Stop Hating MySQL: Fixing Common Mistakes and Myths".

The presentation slides can be downloaded as a PDF at:

http://technocation.org/files/doc/stophatingmysql.pdf

View the video online at http://technocation.org/node/646/play or download the 202.5 MB Flash video file (.flv) directly at http://technocation.org/node/646/download.

Here are some notes and links I referred to:

read more

So, I actually started my trip early, the taxi picked me up from my house in Malta at 5:15am, and after a short stop in the lounge for some breakfast, I boarded KM100 bound for Heathrow. After a layover there, I eventually arrived at Dulles International, and there was no queue for US customs and border patrol!

Picked up the rental car and drove the 101 miles to Charlottesville, VA — in dense fog.

Met with Sheeri and talked for a bit on Thursday, before just falling asleep, due to time difference and the long travel.

So on Friday, we had a few hours to run errands and pick up last minute stuff that we had forgot back home and so on, before the start at 6pm. Met up with everyone, had some nice interesting conversations and towards the end of the night, 14 of us decided that it was time for dinner, so we went over to a local restaurant. Lots of …

Sun announced a significant layoff and restructuring yesterday, shedding between 5K and 6K staff, out of 30K. 20% is significant.

Lots of people, including friends and family, have asked what effect it has had on me.

Not much. What I have been doing at Sun is unaffected, and what I plan on doing at Sun is unaffected. The database groups (e.g. MySQL) aren't getting reduced beyond normal post-aquisition attrition, and in fact, the database groups are still hiring. Not hiring as easily, since instead of our older system where a PM decides he needs someone, gets permission, looks at some candidates, and then just hires someone anywhere in the world and puts them to work, here at Sun we have to work thru a byzantine and slow "hiring process" that much more painful and not nearly as smoothly international. But, we are still hiring.

If you want to be a developer on MySQL, or provide support, or do remote DBA …

I'm at OpenSQLCamp this weekend.

Just like every traveller eventually has to do ORD at a dead run (BTDT), every traveller has to deal with DC commuter exodus traffic. And that's what I did last night. I got out of the gig at the Intelset Building Complex in DC at 5, and started the drive to Charlottesville VA. Google Maps said it would take 1.5 hours. The Nuvi in my rental car started out saying 2 hours. But it kept adding more time, and in the end, it took 3, plus 20 minutes of trying to find a place to park. The traffic avoidance in the Nuvi kept me off the freeway, and put me on the Lee Highway, so that was nearly 80 miles of hitting a stoplight every few miles.

Let's say I really needed the glasses of wine I enjoyed when I arrived.


The who's who crew of MySQL is here. Sheeri met me at the door. After …

The OpenSQLCamp started yesterday in Charlottesville, VA.
As expected, the gathering is impressive. There are many well known names from the open source database world. MySQL is probably overrepresented, but that's fair, considering its wide adoption.

Yesterday was an informal "meet anyone and let's see what we do tomorrow". The schedule, as you can see, is very dynamic.

One of the new features in the new release of MySQL Enterprise Monitor is Query Analyzer. As the name suggests, the Query Analyzer provides information about the queries that are running on your server, the response times and row and byte statistics. The information provided is great, and it doesn’t take very long to see from the query data supplied that there are places where you could improve the the query, or even reduce the number of queries that you submit.

The system works by using the functionality of the MySQL Proxy to monitor the queries being executed and then provide that information up to the MySQL Enterprise Service Manager so that the information can be displayed within the Query Analyzer page. To get the queries monitored, you have to send the queries through the agent which both monitors their execution and sends the information on up to the Manager, along with all the other data being monitored.

The team, …

Antonio Carlos González Cabrera, of the University of Spain has kindly sent me the Spanish translation of the slides I used for a session on MySQL couple of days back. Antonio is going to use the slides in his database class.



Thanks Antonio!

Here is the slide deck: http://amitsaha.in.googlepages.com/MySQL-Intro-features-benefits-SPANIS.ppt