If you create a table using a numeric type like INT or BIGINT, you might have been surprised by the numbers that appear in the table's DESCRIBE:

mysql> CREATE TABLE test(a INT, b SMALLINT, c BIGINT);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (1.04 sec)
mysql> DESCRIBE test;
+-------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field | Type        | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| a     | int(11)     | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| b     | smallint(6) | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| c     | bigint(20)  | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
+-------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
3 rows in set (0.03 sec)

I didn't put those values 11, 6, and 20 in there. Where did they come from and what are they? They're the columns' "Display Width"

Well, for an integer type (the value in parentheses called the display width of the field. This is …

One good thing about going to the MySQL UC is the fact that you will interact with many people and you benefit from social events in the evenings. In its heyday, I recall you get no more than 4 hours of sleep a night, because you’re busy with people for up to 20 hours a day. Meetings, drinks, the hallway track are also all very interesting. That’s the added value of going to an event besides just the learning.

Monday is open source appreciation day and I know there will be drinks planned on Monday evening (31.03) at least from the CentOS Dojo crew. Tuesday (01.04) brings on the welcome reception (4.30-6.30pm), while Wednesday is the …

I wrote previously about Percona Live Santa Clara 2014, and I want to bring to your attention something Percona has done that is very nice to open source communities: have an open source appreciation day.

Its before the conference (so on Monday), and you get a choice between the CentOS Dojo (great lineup there including many from Red Hat, Monty from MariaDB, and PeterZ from Percona) or the OpenStack Today (another great lineup …

Ah database security… the black sheep of topics and something you would really rather not have to deal with right?

I mean surely all the fanfare and paranoia is reserved for the neck beards with tinfoil hats whom live in their own D.I.Y Faraday cage … that must be it … it just has to be?

No, the hard reality is the world is not rose tinted and “they” are out to get you be it for fun or for profit; from defacements to theft compromising your applications, and more importantly your data is big business. For some these acts are nothing short of sheer entertainment for an otherwise boring evening. (I’ll be speaking about this topic next week in much more detail at the Percona Live MySQL Conference and Expo in Santa Clara, California. My session, “Security and why you need to review …

I’ll speak about MySQL 5.7 Performance & Benchmarks during the incoming Percona Live and will be happy to share with you all our latest finding, improvements, benchmark results, open issues and many other stuff keeping our brains in constant activity ) As you know, there is no a “silver bullet” solution for MySQL Performance tuning.. – only by a good understanding of what is going inside of MySQL and InnoDB you may configure your MySQL server in the most optimal way for your workloads. And this topic is endless, and progressing every month with new solutions and features – all parties are working hard here, and I’m very curious to hear from users during this Conference what are their biggest performance issues for today, and of course looking forward to discuss proposed changes from Percona, Facebook, …

As an update to the previous announcement from Feb 27, 2014 we would like to update you on the conferences which MySQL Community team is supporting with an attendance of MySQL technical staff and sometimes with Java, Oracle VM and Oracle Linux experts as well. You are invited to meet our engineers at any of the event below.  

EMEA 

• NEW! Open Source Days 2014, Bielsko, Poland, March 28-30, 2014
  • Our local MySQL colleague Marcin Szalowicz will attend this conference and represent MySQL there. Please come to hear his presentation on "MySQL Workbench …

There’s one thing that has always bugged me when I review configuration files. People always seem to want to set certain buffer settings to ridiculously high values without really understanding what they’re doing.

Case in point: sort_buffer_size.

The misconception seems to be that setting this value to a high number will always improve a servers performance because everything works better with more memory, right? For some variables (key_buffer, innodb_buffer_pool) maybe, but the entire length of a sort buffer is allocated when ORDER BY is used. In practice, I find it best to leave it at default and watch sort_merge_passes in your status counter to determine if you need to adjust this value. Also, adjust in small amounts.

…

The MySQL developer tools team announces 6.1.3 RC - the final release candidate for MySQL Workbench 6.1.

MySQL Workbench 6.1 is the upcoming major update for the official MySQL graphical development tool.
Introducing over 30 new features, this version has many significant enhancement focusing on real-time performance assessment and analysis from the SQL statement level to server internals and file IO. You'll see this in additions to the SQL Editor as well as new dashboard visualization and reporting that takes advantage of MySQL Server 5.6 and 5.7 Performance Schema, and enhancements to the MySQL Explain Plans.

Additionally Workbench 6.1 is leveraging work from various teammates in MySQL Engineering by introducing a schema called "SYS" that provides simplified views on Performance Schema, Information Schema, and other areas. Special thanks to the server optimizer team, server runtime team, and Mark …

We deploy Galera Cluster (in MariaDB) for some clients, and innodb_flush_logs_on_trx_commit is one of the settings we’ve been playing with. The options according to the manual:

• =0 don’t write or flush at commit, write and flush once per second
• =1 write and flush at trx commit
• =2 write log, but only flush once per second

The flush (fsync) refers to the mechanism the filesystem uses to try and guarantee that written data is actually on the physical medium/device and not just in a buffer (of course cached RAID controllers, SANs and other devices use some different logic there, but it’s definitely written beyond the OS space).

In a non-cluster setup, you’d always want it to be =1 in order to be ACID compliant and that’s also InnoDB’s default. So far so good. For cluster setups, you could be more lenient with this as you require ACID on the cluster as …

Have you read the MySQL March Newsletter? Check it out to learn more about the Call of Papers for MySQL Connect @ OpenWorld 2014, MySQL in action in the finance, retail and channel management sectors, as well as numerous technical tips written by MySQL experts at Oracle and in the community. The highlights in this edition include:

• Submit Sessions for MySQL Connect @ OpenWorld 2014
  
• MySQL Connector/NET 6.8.3 Available as Official MySQL NuGet Packages
  
• New Case Studies: MySQL in Action in Finance, Retail, and Channel Management
  
• New White Paper: Guide to the MySQL Workbench Migration Wizard: From Microsoft SQL Server to MySQL
• Featured Video: How to Export Your Database with MySQL for Visual Studio
  
• Blog: Today's Practical Use Case for …