It's the end of the year and, before the world ends ;-) , I feel the pressure to follow up on last year's article "2011, a great year for MySQL in Review". I'll adopt a similar format and mention things in context, covering products, marketing, momentum, etc. at a high level. I may have missed something and I hope my colleagues will contribute to the list.

I really do think it's been the best year for MySQL so far... well, at least since when I signed my contract with MySQL AB at the end of 2007. We're just at the beginning of our journey and I wish to the MySQL family, to our community and ecosystem an even better 2013!

Summary
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As the world's most popular web database, MySQL has quickly become the leading database for the cloud, with most providers offering MySQL-based services.

Access our Resource Kit to discover:

• Why MySQL has become the leading database in the cloud, and how it addresses the critical attributes of cloud-based deployments
• How ISVs rely on MySQL to power their SaaS offerings
• Best practices to deploy the world’s most popular open source database in public and private clouds

You will also find out how you can leverage MySQL together with Hadoop and other technologies to unlock the value of Big Data, either on-premise or in the cloud. …

RedeHost are one of Brazil's largest cloud computing and web hosting providers, with more than 60,000 customers and 52,000 web sites running on its infrastructure.

As the company grew, Redehost needed to automate operations, such as system monitoring, making the operations team more proactive in solving problems. Redehost also sought to improve server uptime, robustness, and availability, especially during backup windows, when performance would often dip.

To address the needs of the business, Redehost migrated from the community edition of MySQL to MySQL Enterprise Edition, which has delivered a host of benefits:

- Pro-active database management and monitoring using MySQL Enterprise Monitor, enabling …

SkySQL™ Cloud Data Suite now comes with 4 nodes system on AWS Plus: AWS tips & tricks, updated administration console, new video tour & more

As with all new open source software products, updates are a continuous process and we’ve been busy since the launch of the SkySQL™ Cloud Data Suitelast September! Here is a snapshot of the latest developments with our Cloud Data Suite, a collection of software components that provides a highly available database solution in a cloud environment, based on MySQL & MariaDB, deployable in the Amazon Cloud, i.e. AWS.

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The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is one of the world’s largest and most respected centers for scientific research. Founded in 1954 and located near Geneva on the Franco-Swiss border, CERN was one of Europe’s first joint ventures. Today, it has 20 member states. The organization uses the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments to study fundamental particles and the origin of the universe.

Challenges

• Better support the scientists associated with a CERN research program who selected MySQL as their database.
• Empower users, enabling them to be as self-reliant as possible.
• Minimize complexity and costs for the CERN IT department to support the growing number of MySQL deployments.

Solution

• Delivered a MySQL Database-as-a-Service offering to the CERN employees and the scientists associated with the organization.
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Background: SkySQL is a distributed company. Nearly all of us work from home. To be productive, we need to emulate the best aspects of collaborating as if we were working next to one another. Given that nearly all of us had worked under similar distributed conditions at MySQL AB, we knew what we were getting into when we were founded. Obviously, we wanted to learn from our past experiences when making our choices for tools and processes.

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What a relief! A few simple configuration steps gives me new hope for coping with email.

It unlikely matters to you, but it does to me: My inbox is down to zero. That is, both my two inboxes are empty. I get work email to my @skysql.com address and private email to my @arno.fi, both of which have been suffering from bad email habits.

Inspired by years of discussions with Giuseppe Maxia, who is living proof that proper IT tools make geeks work smarter, faster and better, I bought the book "lifehacker". The first one out of over 100 hacks is labeled "Empty Your Inbox (and Keep It Empty"), so I judged that piece of advice to be worth following.

That was a few hours ago. No, in that short …

There's definitely more and more buzz on and around cloud computing and different solutions to support it nowadays!

This was evident while visiting LinuxCon/CloudOpen in San Diego a few weeks ago, where I spoke about high availability solutions for MySQL. Most cloud sessions were highly attended, and I could sense an excitement in the air with regards to the cloud. It was also evident, however, that there is only a small percentage of people today truly taking advantage of the cloud. It seems that despite all the excitement, there is a large portion of potential users who don't know how to use the cloud, or what the benefits and potential drawbacks are.

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Sitting at the Hilton in San Francisco, listening to the MySQL Connect opening Keynotes, sparks interesting thoughts. Thoughts about the future of MySQL, the Oracle stewardship, the MariaDB alternative and the advantage of the solutions provided by the MySQL Ecosystem.
But there is something missing. I know something is not part of this picture, but I can't figure out what it is.
At the end of keynotes and pane,l I turn to the exhibitors area, an approx 800 sq ft., 50% occupied by Oracle. At the bottom left corner stands my answer. 
The small yellow cubic hive of AWS was at the top of the rollup that reminds of MySQL and RDS, admittedly the most used version of MySQL in the cloud so far. And here is the missing part. 

New great features in 5.6 Release Candidate and in MySQL Cluster 7.3
The new features …

Sitting at the Hilton in San Francisco, listening to the MySQL Connect opening Keynotes, sparks interesting thoughts. Thoughts about the future of MySQL, the Oracle stewardship, the MariaDB alternative and the advantage of the solutions provided by the MySQL Ecosystem.
But there is something missing. I know something is not part of this picture, but I can't figure out what it is.
At the end of keynotes and pane,l I turn to the exhibitors area, an approx 800 sq ft., 50% occupied by Oracle. At the bottom left corner stands my answer. 
The small yellow cubic hive of AWS was at the top of the rollup that reminds of MySQL and RDS, admittedly the most used version of MySQL in the cloud so far. And here is the missing part. 

New great features in 5.6 Release Candidate and in MySQL Cluster 7.3
The new features packed into …