MySQL 5.1 is nearly GA (not debating that fun now ;-), MySQL 6.0 has interesting new magic such as Falcon and online backup. But I still have many clients that are on MySQL 4.0 or 4.1 both in production and development. Works fine, overall, but quite a few problems would be nonexistent if they were on 5.0, and by making use of some changed or new features various aspects could be faster.

The Open Query MySQL 5.0 Upgrade and Advanced Features course day is for this group of developers and DBAs, but also for users moving to MySQL and going straight for MySQL 5.0 (as they should, please don't *start* with earlier versions!).

We delve into the differences and new features. This includes

• Views — did you know they're updatable, and have you considered using them for smart access control? (tables, columns, rows) …

I think I have pictures of most of the basic parts of the conference at my OSCON Flickr set, and I thoroughly enjoyed day 1 of the conference. Of course, while *day* 1 is over, *night* 1 has yet to even begin. There are lots of BoF sessions, and maybe even more smaller meetups going on, as smaller groups take to discussing things over dinner and a beer or three.

I have to say, that I occasionally pop into irc channels for conferences I’m not even at and follow up on that because I’m involved a bit in conference planning as part of my work with Python Magazine (I’m helping to organize the PyWorks conference in November). This conference seems to have a pretty happy audience, if IRC chatter is any indication (and it usually is). Sure, there are a couple of weak spots in the wireless network, there are some fuzzy projectors, and there was a little …

Within the present MySQL ecosystem, there are limited options for dedicated MySQL Consulting in the US. Outside of the official Sun/MySQL Consulting, Percona and Proven Scaling both based in Silicon valley are the only options generally known and accepted by the MySQL Community.

There is now an east coast option based in New York, and that is Ronald Bradford. Providing expert MySQL Consulting in Architecture, Performance, Scalability, Migration and Knowledge Transfer.

With two decades working in the IT industry, Ronald is well qualified in MySQL having previously provided consulting services for MySQL Inc combining 9 years experience with the product. His consulting experience is not limited to MySQL, having …

As the years go by, data pages on disk have to get bigger. 16 KB pages were good for databases in the late 1990’s, but today’s data pages should probably be 64 KB. Page sizes go up over time because memory gets cheaper, and disks get much larger, but disks do not get very much faster.

In 1997, a Megabyte of memory cost $15, but today it costs 10 cents. A new SCSI drive held 4 GB then but 146 GB today. If cost is held constant, today’s machine has 150 times the memory and 36 times the storage of a machine from ten years ago, but the performance of disks is only about 3 times better. Disks are still about 3 inches across and turn at about 10K RPM; today’s best disk might deliver about 180 I/Os per second (IOPS), compared to 60 IOPS in 1997. And since the disk doesn’t move much faster, it makes sense — given the cheap storage both on disk and off — to transfer a bigger chunk of data back and forth with every disk access.

…

Scientists are pondering an idea of adding lime to seawater to reduce CO2 levels. The open source collaboration model is being used to flesh out the idea. READ MORE

Concentric, the company I work for, is looking for a MySQL DBA! The position is in San Jose, CA, and here is a link to the official job posting. To apply, please email your resume and a cover letter to SELECT REVERSE(’moc.ox.ws@semuser’);. Include “MySQL DBA” in your subject line. Here is the description:

Concentric, an XO Communications Service, is looking to grow its Engineering team with a MySQL Database Administrator. The successful candidate will have great technical depth and breadth to span our applications, server and web service. We want to talk to people who can think out-of-the-box to help us find unique solutions in a fast moving environment.

Responsibilities

• Design and support the MySQL 5 databases for customer-facing and back-end systems used in a high volume internet services company using high …

In about 20 minutes I leave for the airport, arriving tonight in lovely Portland, OR to attend OSCON.  This will be my third appearance there and I look forward to listening, learning, being interviewed and podcasting.  In fact it was at last year's OSCON that I kicked off my foray into the wild and wacky world of podcasting.    A year later I've got over 70 under my belt and am looking to grab a few more.

What to look for 

As I mentioned previously, Dalibor will be giving a talk and as Ken points out, Sun will be having its "coach potato" booth as …

Andrii Nikitin, his wife and their kids arrived in Germany today. Fellow MySQL Support Engineer Axel Schwenke gave them a ride from the airport to Heidelberg, where Ivan had his first medical checkup at the University Hospital.

Georg Richter has organised an apartment for the first days - until they get some furniture for the final one.

From what can be seen, they all do fine. About Ivan - that remains to be seen.

Footnote from our request to donate to help Andrii Nikitin’s son Ivan:

Donations are requested to help Andrii Nikitin, a MySQL support engineer in Ukraine, provide for his son Ivan who requires a bone marrow transplant operation. …

One of the interesting things about conferences is the fact that there are usually parties associated with the conference. This usually means free food and drink. Sometimes, it usually means free t-shirts[1].

Anyway, its a great way to mingle and network, share and learn new things. So come to the OpenSolaris-MySQL-Zend OSCON Bash located at the DoubleTree Hotel (Lloyd Centre), on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 from 8pm-midnight.

Jesse Silver (excellent party planner - I found his skills amazing at the OpenSolaris Developer Summit earlier this year, in Santa Cruz, back in May), has assured us that it will be “carnivalesque”. Boxing, tricycle races, shooting galleries, pool, and an open bar :)

[1] - Good, since I’ve had to visit Target to buy some yesterday - thanks to United’s great efforts of …