Every so often I need to reply the question, what is the best way to use 10.000 connections with MySQL (you can select your favorite big number here)
Well. The good answer is your better not.

First let see where this requirement typically comes from ? Most commonly it is something like we have 40 apache boxes each having 200 children with persistent connections which gives us 8000. Well... This brings me to two questions - do you really need persistent connections and do you really need 200 apache children ?

Persistent connections will give you decent performance benefit only in one case - if there are few database queries to create the page and if database load is large response time contributor. In modern rather complex applications it is rarely the case. This is one of examples why persistent connections were disabled in "MySQLi" for PHP. Java applications are better in this sense as they typically use …

One nice thing about speaking at the User’s Conference is that you get admission not only to the conference, but also to the Monday tutorial sessions.

This year I plan to attend two tutorial sessions:

Secure Your PHP and MySQL Web Applications

This one is delivered by Laura Thomson, whose writing and sessions I always love, can’t miss this one.

Data Warehousing with MySQL

John Paul Ashenfelter is a cool guy who really knows his stuff, I missed this session last year and don’t plan to miss it again.

As usual, you can expect a flurry of notes come conference time.

MySQL QA

Now that we have Disk Data for MySQL Cluster you can have the best of both worlds. You can use memory tables for those needing quick access and updates and Disk Data Files for those that will be too large to keep in memory all the time.

One issue with this first release is not having the ability to spread the data and undo files accross the disk sub system using the config.ini file. This can be a important issue for performance. You really don't want to have everything on one disk. Here I list a work around for moving undo and/or data files off to different drives to help in disk performance that I used during performance testing.

1) Bring up the cluster to include all data nodes
2) Each data node will create its own File System ((e.g. ndb_#_fs) where # == the DN ID)).
3) Under the data node FS create the symbolic links …

Jay Pipes gave an amazing tutorial on optimizing performance in MySQL by choosing your indexes and joins well. There were plenty of questions from the audience which he handled well, and in style. Over 50 people attended! And I really feel as though everyone learned a lot. The tutorial ran for 3 hours, but we were engaged until the last, and there were 15-20 people even at the bitter end.

Thanx, Jay! I can’t wait to see how the tutorial goes over at the MySQL Users Conference.

Pictures, video, slides and presentations will be up when we get to it.

MySQL implements the BIT data type differently in different versions, and the behavior is not what one might expect. In this article I’ll explain how MySQL’s behavior has changed over time, what strange things can happen as a result, and how to understand and work around display issues. I’ll tell you about a serious bug I’ve found, and discuss differences in the BIT data type between MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server.

MySQL QA

Testing 5.1 MySQL CLuster is moving along. We now have more automated test cases, have been using TPC-B and DBT2 in testing, conducted load and HA testing.

The great news is that many issues are now found early before the customer base has to deal with them.

This relase will be packed full of great stuff for Cluster including the first release of Disk Data and Replication for MySQL Cluster.

The MySQL User Conf is just a few weeks away where much of this will be shown. Hope to see you there.

In the next few days, we'll be finalizing the schedule for the MySQL Birds of a Feather sessions at the upcoming MySQL Users Conference. I've been working hard with Edwin DeSouza (MySQL's Senior Director of Product Marketing) to get a full and robust set of BoF sessions to meet the varied interests of our enormous community.

Although the mysqluc.com website doesn't yet have all the details (because we're still finalizing the schedule), you can expect to enjoy the following awesome array of Birds of a Feather sessions:

• Programming Languages
  • Perl BoF
  • PHP BoF
  • Ruby BoF
  • .NET/Mono BoF
  • C/C++ BoF
  • Java BoF
• MySQL Functionality and Topics
  • Cluster
  • Replication
  • Backups
  • Partitioning
  • GUI …

Join me tonight at the Boston MySQL Meetup if your in the area! I'll be giving a presentation entitled "Index and Coding Techniques for Optimal Performance", which is a slightly different version of the performance session I'll be giving at the MySQlLUsers Conference in a couple weeks.

I'm really excited about meeting all the Boston MySQLers this evening, for a number of reasons. For one, it looks like there will be more than 50 people attending the meetup tonight, which makes the Boston meetup group one of the largest and most successful in the country. Many thanks should go to Sheeri Kritzer, the local organizer, and Mark Rubin, from MySQL, for their awesome efforts to grow the MySQL community locally in Boston. I'm interested to talk …

oreilly.com got the first scoop, but we'll be officially unveiling opentaps version 0.9 at the MySQL Users Conference 2006. This will be a landmark release for us, the first one combining the Open For Business applications and framework with our Financials and CRM modules to create a complete open source ERP+CRM suite. The combined suite would give e-tailers, retailers, and manufacturers the ability to manage their entire business, from customers to orders to inventory and manufacturing to accounting, …

Using MySQL with SSL has always meant making custom compiles of the client and server — until now.

I was working on the MySQL 5.0.20 changelog when I noticed that the build team will be compiling SSL support into MySQL as of 5.0.20.

So give it a shot when 5.0.20 comes out! Head to http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/secure-connections.html and read up on using it, try it out (ignoring the requirement to compile MySQL, gotta get that updated) and help test it.