So yesterday I presented my findings on MySQL Cluster (ndbd) and Drupal.

I`ll be writing them out in a more detailed document some day soon ..
But the short summary is that MySQL-Cluster and Drupal are not a good fit.
One has to realise that MySQL cluster isn't always a good solution and that every problem has it's own solutions. The nature of the tables of Drupal means that you need enormous amounts of memory.

I was a bit afraid that the present MySQL crowd woudln't really appreciate my findings, however I was wrong I got some good feedback from the present MySQL crowd , they too seem to want to promote the idea that Cluster is not a fit for every problem, and they were great help in answering some of the audience questions.

The presentation is here …

Recently, I came upon Baron Swartz's (xaprb's) great now_usec UDF:
http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2007/10/30/how-i-built-the-now_usec-udf-for-mysql/

I use an Intel Macbook Pro for my primary development environment. GCC on OS X has some interesting quirks. Usually to compile a UDF on GNU/Linux I use the following command line:

gcc -fPIC -Wall -I/usr/include/mysql -shared -o udf_now_usec.so udf_now_usec.cc

When I tried to execute the above on my OS X box, I got some errors:

$ gcc -fPIC -Wall -I../include -shared -o udf_now_usec.so udf_now_usec.cc
i686-apple-darwin8-gcc-4.0.1: unrecognized option '-shared'
/usr/bin/ld: Undefined symbols:
_main
___gxx_personality_v0</b>
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

The …

Fosdem is over .. and it was ... overcrowded :(

Honestly trying to squeeze into an overcrowded bar, then on saturday overcrowded rooms, or even not being able to enter that room (Mozilla and Embedded) , Fosdem is starting to become the victim of it's own success.

Some people are suggesting Fosdem to move to the Arenberg campus in "Brussels-East" dunnow if Leuven can actually host enough beds for Fosdem :)
However the Beer event problem would be solved but Philip will have to make arrangements with 'The greatest bar of Western Europe"

The talk about Xen on ARM was interresting however the grande finale missed, the MiniOS just didn't boot :( Kettle was interresting …

I haven't gotten any responses to my question from Friday, so I figured I'd post a more direct question:

The two variables 'innodb_pages_read' and 'innodb_buffer_pool_reads' are different.  'Innodb_pages_read' seems consistently higher than the buffer_pool_reads.  Certainly the buffer pool reads 'pages', but what else would be counted as a page read?

On the flip side, 'innodb_pages_written' and 'innodb_buffer_pool_pages_flushed' seem consistent.  
Anyone have any clues?

I haven't gotten any responses to my question from Friday, so I figured I'd post a more direct question:

The two variables 'innodb_pages_read' and 'innodb_buffer_pool_reads' are different.  'Innodb_pages_read' seems consistently higher than the buffer_pool_reads.  Certainly the buffer pool reads 'pages', but what else would be counted as a page read?

On the flip side, 'innodb_pages_written' and 'innodb_buffer_pool_pages_flushed' seem consistent.  
Anyone have any clues?

A few days behind schedule, we can announce that the new beta - version 5.0.14 - has reached our mirrors. A bunch of improvements and fixes are incorporated in this release. The software rendering mode has been changed to using Windows GDI instead of the mesa-library. This change brings a big (and badly needed) performance boost when using MySQL Workbench without openGL rendering. There are further improvements like the brushed up property editor, new view-options on the overview page or manually resizable table-objects. Code has been cleaned up extensively and over 30 bugs has been squashed since 5.0.13. Take a look at our Releases Page to read all the dirty details.
Please check out the new release and see whats new and better.

Recently we put together a consolidation benchmark to see how an open-source stack performs against the proprietary stack from Microsoft. Solaris, MySQL, and Sun Web Server running on the open-source UltraSPARC T2 processor were pitted against a Microsoft SW stack running on a 4-socket QC Xeon server. This benchmark highlights the continued trend to incorporate MySQL open-source databases and how it works under virtualization (Solaris Zones).

The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 (1.4 Ghz UltraSPARC T2 processor) and Solaris Containers managing a consolidation of Open-Source Software components (MySQL Database and Sun Java System Web Server) provided 2.4 times better performance than the HP DL580 system (four Xeon quad-core processors) and a major virtualization software, Microsoft Windows 2003 Server EE, Microsoft SQLserver database and Microsoft IIS webserver.

The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 using the MySQL database in Solaris zones is …

Recently we put together a consolidation benchmark to see how an open-source stack performs against the proprietary stack from Microsoft. Solaris, MySQL, and Sun Web Server running on the open-source UltraSPARC T2 processor were pitted against a Microsoft SW stack running on a 4-socket QC Xeon server. This benchmark highlights the continued trend to incorporate MySQL open-source databases and how it works under virtualization (Solaris Zones).

The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 (1.4 Ghz UltraSPARC T2 processor) and Solaris Containers managing a consolidation of Open-Source Software components (MySQL Database and Sun Java System Web Server) provided 2.4 times better performance than the HP DL580 system (four Xeon quad-core processors) and a major virtualization software, Microsoft Windows 2003 Server EE, Microsoft SQLserver database and Microsoft IIS webserver.

The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 using the MySQL database in Solaris zones is …

I came home very tired yesterday, just walking around as a big MySQL billboard and I left with mixed feelings really.

First feelings were Happiness + Anger (=Love??). I had a nice dinner with Bruce and Magnus (PostgreSQL) on Thursday, met others at their booth and attended a few talks both Saturday and Sunday. I'm interested in their stuff, I do like PostgreSQL, just like probably everyone else in MySQL. But, I got very angry about 2 remarks made in the DevRoom: "MySQL loses data" and the infamous and idiotic "MySQL has no transactions". FFS! The latter was corrected on the spot, that REALLY pissed me off (remark made by non-PostgreSQL crew btw).
Anyway, overall, I did like what I was hearing, the project is going well, and lots of cool stuff coming in! Very nice! Funny thing though: "Who's using Partitioning?", one guy (as far as I could see) put up his finger.

Next feeling: Amazed! Drupal! I don't like PHP, bah, …

Luc just pointed me with to his recording of my talk about Drupal and MySQL HA yesterday at the Drupal Room at Fosdem

He also uploaded some other video's from the Drupal room.

More about my Fosdem 2008 experience later :)