I was looking for an alternative to MySQL Cluster for large tables, less critical tables but still important enough ones ;)

I got MySQL cluster up and running for most of my tables, but we need some tables that are storing log information, it's not really critical, but we don't want to loose it anyway. As we don't want to put that stuf in memory I was looking into replication those tables. Now Linux-HA takes care of which mysqld instance to talk to , but if I fail over the active database IP the applications start writing to the 2nd node which is the replication slave for a couple of tables. That's perfect for the Cluster tables, but it's pain for the replicated InnodB tables as replication breaks and I can't migrate back automagically.

Upon reading the --read-only parameter in the replication documentation I tought I had found the solution, only to realise this actually puts the whole mysql in read-only also the tables being used …

Sysbench is benchmark developed by Alexey Kopytov (software engineer @ MySQL AB)
- http://sysbench.sourceforge.net/ and I want to write a short intro about this tool as sysbench is one of software for my everyday use. For example, SUN published their Solaris vs RedHat stuff based on sysbench's results (Peter and me provided performance consutling for this publishing).
Sysbench has a lot of options and details so my goal is describe common usage of benchmark.
Sysbench allows to test:

• file I/O performance
• scheduler performance
• memory allocation and transfer speed
• POSIX threads implementation performance
• database server performance

First four is useful for the platform evalution, for …

Brian and Trudy have been busy entering design documents into the MySQL Forge wiki on a proposed pluggable authentication module system for MySQL, along with a related design document for pluggable authorization as well.

This discussion area and document is timely indeed. Over the last couple weeks, I have seen a number of mentions over on freenode #mysql about whether MySQL plans to support pluggable authentication modules, as well as recent ongoing discussion about the topic on the internals mailing list. The concept is one which I hinted about in "Pro MySQL" when I wrote about User Administration in Chapter 15, and the fact that it would be nice to have a role-based implementation similar to …

It's time to turn our attention to the sixth edition of Log Buffer, a Carnival of the Vanities for the DBA community.

This week, like every week, DBAs all around the world have been hard at work writing about their experiences, many of them providing detailed instructions on new and interesting ways to use and manage a database.

For folks wondering if it's worth all the work, Eddie Awad's Blog now has the latest results from his Unofficial Oracle Developer/DBA Salary Survey. The results are interesting, and hopefully encouraging. While the data is why we all rush there to see where we stand, there's also a good summary of the process Eddie went through to run and process the …

Slashdot has an excellent interview with Fedora Project Lead Max Spevack. It's great on a number of different levels, talking through the technical aspects of Fedora and what-not, but is particularly interesting when it hones in on the Fedora vs. RHEL question. Spevack responds to the contention that Fedora is simply beta-ware for RHEL, as follows:

I'm really glad this question was asked, because it gives me a chance to try to bust the NUMBER ONE MYTH about Fedora -- that Fedora is "just a beta for RHEL" or that "Fedora only exists to make Red Hat money" or "Red Hat doesn't care about Fedora, it's just a dumping ground for half-tested code". I hear all of those things from time to time, and *none* of them are true.

Let's back up for a moment -- the Red Hat Linux/Fedora Core split took place in 2003. And while I wasn't at Red Hat …

You may have noticed that you don't find any links for MySQL Administrator, MySQL QueryBrowser, MySQL MigrationToolkit and MySQL Workbench on dev.mysql.com anymore.

All these tools are now available in the new MySQL GUI Tools bundle and you can download versions for Windows, Linux and MacOS.

OK, it's official! Google has offered to host the first MySQL camp at its Mountain View headquarters, on November 10th through 12th. Many thanks go out to Googlers Leslie Hawthorn and Mikal Still, who made it happen. Google will be providing food for the event as well, but we still encourage creative contributions from other sponsors.

Some ideas for possible sponsors:

• Sponsor one or more developers to get to and from the unconference. Since the event is on the west coast, it is difficult for some developers to get to the conference, especially from the east coast and other countries. Consider offering travel expenses for interested and motivated parties
• Provide transportation to and from nearby airports via a shuttle service
• Books, t-shirts, etc for participants

…

Mike Kruckenberg has published the sixth edition of Log Buffer. Excellent post Mike, thanks! You can present your point of view of the database blogosphere by editing and publishing an edition of Log Buffer yourself. Learn how to on Log Buffer’s homepage. See you in a week!

mysqlsniffer v1.2 has been released which now supports MySQL 4.0 servers (via the --v40 command line option). Previously, it only supported 4.1+, but there are protocol differences between 4.0 and 4.1 that caused mysqlsniffer to crash often when sniffing 4.0 servers. The release works but it has not been tested extensively, therefore it is considered unstable. Thanks to Marek, though, for helping me try to get the release more stable.

By tim

In a conversation yesterday, John Fandel, the general manager of The O'Reilly Network, made an interesting point: he wants to build our web publishing tools around the model of delivering "dial tone."

As we talked, the idea took hold. I was reminded of Michael Crichton's observation in his 1983 book Electronic Life that in the 1940's there was concern that the telephone system was growing so fast that there wouldn't be enough operators unless AT&T hired every person in America. AT&T solved the problem by creating automated switching systems that, in effect, did turn every person in the world into an operator--without hiring them. The principle of dial tone is to create a situation where users can do something …