I’ve been working with what I used to call “utility computing” tools for about 6-9 months. However, for about the past 2 months, I’ve been seeing the term “cloud computing” all over the place, and there is so much buzz surrounding it that it’s reaching that magical point best described using Alan Greenspan’s words: “Irrational Exuberance”.

When Alan Greenspan used those words to describe the attitudes of investors toward the markets, what he was basically saying was that there were people who didn’t really know what they were doing, putting more money than they ought, into things they knew relatively little about. Further, he was saying that the decisions people were making with regards to where to put their money were a) bad, or at least b) not based on sound reasoning, or the ‘facts on the ground’.

This, I think, is where we are at with “cloud computing”. The blog post that put me over the edge is …

Do you want to go to OSCON but can't afford the entrance fee? I can help. Being on the program committee, I receive a freebie ticket to hand out. Simply answer this question (provided by Brian): Where does name of the TINA storage engine come from, and which engine is it actually when used in MySQL?

Be sure to either login to Livejournal when you reply, or have some other way to identify yourself - an anonymous comment can't be contacted, and thus you wouldn't be able to win the prize...

Interesting interview with Marten Mickos in the Wall Street Journal today. I think he describes the overall environment really well, although I don't quite agree that the innovation spirit is all through MySQL. That depends on where the people come from and their own interests, as well as the drivers of their department.

Also, the number of developers is not really 12M. The 12M people could actually be a huge QA department, and used to be exactly that, but they aren't now. This because new code now goes into the Enterprise branch, and first gets tested by the few thousand Enterprise customers, before being let loose on the wider community (the 12M). I'm sure the Enterprise customers are really pleased about this (ask Mark Callaghan)... it's completely upside down. AKA utterly borked.
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A few years back, MySQL (the company) has let its trademark application on the name Sakila expire. As you may (or may not) remember, around 2002 there was a grand naming competition for the new logo dolphin, and Sakila name won, over other interesting names like Finn, and corny blah like Flipper (I know this because I was the person wading through the spreadsheet with all the submissions, extracting a shortlist for Monty and David).
(By the way, MySQL docs team lead Stefan Hinz named his son Finn. I don't know if there's a connection ;-)

Anyway, a bit later but still a few years ago already, the name Sakila was registered by the Jose Cuervo company, of global tequila fame. You can easily see this at uspto.gov.
So, I'm just curious does anyone know of a Cuervo product that uses that name now, or is it a dormant trademark? Is there a relevance to the name sakila in Mexican Spanish? The name originates in Africa.... …

I want to answer a simple question - If a query takes X milliseconds, how much of it is spent in the storage engine, and how much in the MySQL server? Why do I think is important? Well, since I am working on MySQL performance, I want to be able to place my bets on where to spend my time optimizing MySQL. Lets take an example. If a query takes 50ms, and I am able to figure out that 40ms is in the mysql server and the remaining 10ms is in the storage engine, the first place I would want to take a look at optimizing the MySQL server. This also tells me that it does not matter what the storage engine is, I am being limited by the server. Similarly if I find the storage engine taking up most of the time, I can explore alternate storage engines. I know all you mysql experts will tell me that much of the attribution (of time) has got to do with the capability of the storage engine, what features it supports, etc. and you cannot really do the …

I want to answer a simple question - If a query takes X milliseconds, how much of it is spent in the storage engine, and how much in the MySQL server? Why do I think is important? Well, since I am working on MySQL performance, I want to be able to place my bets on where to spend my time optimizing MySQL. Lets take an example. If a query takes 50ms, and I am able to figure out that 40ms is in the mysql server and the remaining 10ms is in the storage engine, the first place I would want to take a look at optimizing the MySQL server. This also tells me that it does not matter what the storage engine is, I am being limited by the server. Similarly if I find the storage engine taking up most of the time, I can explore alternate storage engines. I know all you mysql experts will tell me that much of the attribution (of time) has got to do with the capability of the storage engine, what features it supports, etc. and you cannot really do the …

The next generation of MySQL DBA exams are going to be performance based tests (PBT) or 'Hands on'. A candidate will have a series of tasks to be performed, a virtual server, and a time limit. The tasks are going to be based on the usual tasks performed by a Database Administrator. For instance, a candidate will get a list of user accounts that need to be added, updated, or deleted and will be graded on how well they meet the objectives.

I have already asked my fellow MySQL employees to review the tasks but I would like to have some input from the public. Following the Open Source dictum of the more eyeballs looking at a problem will provide better products, I would like to get some of you to look at the proposed tasks and give me your comments.

In the past there have been complaints on questions being too syntax specific, too picky, and asking for too obscure knowledge. This is a chance to help make sure that the exam …

I was running an import script today taken from a mysqldump from another user, when I saw an error that looked like this:

ERROR 1005 (HY000) at line 123: Cant create table
 (errno: 150)

This is caused by a mysqldump or export process exporting tables in alphabetical order and not in the order in which they rely on one another. My tables had foreign keys which fail on import if the other table doesn't exist when you create the table with the key. In this case I was only importing six or eight tables so I simply opened the script in a text editor and re-ordered the import blocks. On a bigger scale a more technical solution might be required!

Lorna is an independent web development consultant, writer and trainer, open source project lead and community evangelist. This post was originally published at LornaJane

export MYISAM_BACKUP_NO_INDEX=1

backup database employees to 'emp2.bkp';
+-----------+
| backup_id | …