It's been close to 4 months since we released Cool Stack 1.2, so it's time to start thinking about the next release. Here's what we have planned so far and as always I'm looking for feedback from current and future users on what you'd like to see. Needless to say, that all currently known bugs will be fixed and the current patches will be rolled into the release. However, if you don't tell us about the problems you've run into, we won't be able to fix them. So, once again I'd like to encourage people to please post your problem/issue/tips etc. on the forum.

Here's a list of stuff we're currently looking at for Cool Stack 1.3 :

MySQL DBA Certification candidates need to know about a little known but important function.

PROCEDURE ANALYSE() is a rarely used function in these days of inexpensive disks. It is mainly used to suggest optimal column sizes. Forty years ago you needed to worry how to properly encode data so that it would fit on an eighty column punch card. Thirty years ago when hard disks were the size of stove or dishwasher, there was a need to conserve as much space as possible. Today people carry gigs of data in their pocket and a terabyte of disk is available at local stores next to other consumer products. So you can be less than optimal in your storage of data for the most part. There are exceptions. Remember that a smaller width index is going to be a faster index.

Let us pretend that we need to create a table to track item numbers and our data architect, boss, or SWAG tells us there will only be twenty item numbers, ranging from …

Its interesting when you look at MySQL database environments. Extremely popular in the MySQL world is to use commodity hardware and implement the LAMP stack.  Smaller projects and startup companies love this environment.  A simple example, a company needs to set up a web application, they buy some commodity hardware, set up replication and scale horizontally.  Everybody loves this and it works

It is a challenge for new MySQL DBAs to learn best practices for managing database servers. There are no books that teach you everything you need to know.  Key knowledge areas new MySQL DBAs need to learn: Best practices for installation and configuration.How to monitor and manage a database.How to monitor for tuning.Best practices for backup/recovery.Best security practices.What audit controls

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This poser comes from Diego Madina.
Using a fairly recent MySQL 5.0 distribution, we see that…

mysql> SELECT 1.1E0, 2.2E0, 3.3E0;
+-------+-------+-------+
| 1.1E0 | 2.2E0 | 3.3E0 |
+-------+-------+-------+
|   1.1 |   2.2 |   3.3 |
+-------+-------+-------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

and…

mysql> select 1.1+2.2=3.3;
+-------------+
| 1.1+2.2=3.3 |
+-------------+
|           1 |
+-------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

But…

mysql> select 1.1E0+2.2E0=3.3E0;
+-------------------+
| 1.1E0+2.2E0=3.3E0 |
+-------------------+
|                 0 |
+-------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Why?

(more…)

EU fines Microsoft $1.3bn. Sourcefire CEO steps down. FSF launches project to end software patents. (and more)

Novell Reports Financial Results for First Fiscal Quarter 2008, Novell (Press Release)

Wayne Jackson to Step Down as Sourcefire Chief Executive Officer, Sourcefire (Press Release)

End Software Patents (ESP) Project Formed to Eliminate Software Patents, Free Software Foundation (FSF) (Press Release)

…

ASM is definitely one of the coolest technologies inside the Oracle Database. On the other hand, the ability of the storage arrays to provide a read/write access to a copy or a “snapshot” of its content is something we can easily leverage as an Oracle DBA. For a couple of weeks, I wanted to [...]

Well its been a while since I started this, so I thought it was about time to put some of this to rest. I have been beating up the Mtron disks for several weeks. During that time I had a couple of really odd outages, a lot of head scratching, and my fair share of number crunching. I have been talking with Kevin Burton a lot the last few weeks, we have compared and shared information on the optimal configuration for the current generation of ssd drives. I have held back a large number of my benchmarks because i want to get a complete picture. I want to evaluate the drives & the MFT software while minimizing any self induced mishaps. I have ran and reran tests over and over again, at last count I had run over 280 …