MySQL Conference Kicks Off, New Versions Announced

This week in Silicon Valley, the MySQL Conference and Expo is underway, and there are already questions appearing about whether the speakers will have to perform last minute tweaks to their addresses in light of yesterday's news that Oracle is acquiring MySQL's parent, Sun Microsystems. I doubt if there will be a whole lot said on that topic, but the conference has some interesting events, and Sun has also just announced MySQL Cluster 7.0 (a carrier grade version of MySQL), and the preview version of MySQL 5.4. Here's what's in the new releases, when they're available, and what's slated for the conference.

You can get lots of information about MySQL Cluster 7.0 here, although it won't be generally released until later this quarter. According to Sun's announcement, MySQL Cluster 7.0 is a "major new release" of its carrier grade open source database software. New features include enhanced performance and scalability; support for popular LDAP directories; and simplified cluster backup and maintenance. There is support for in-memory and disk-based data, automatic data partitioning with load balancing, and the ability to add nodes to a running cluster with zero downtime, according to Sun. At the link above, you can find evaluation guides and benchmarks for the new release.

The preview version of MySQL 5.4 is available for download now, here. Sun claims that it has 90 percent faster response times, which seems like a tall order, and scalability up to 16-way x86 servers and 64-way CMT servers. There are also new subquery optimizations and JOIN improvements, designed to boost performance.

Karen Tegan Padir, vice president of Sun's MySQL and Software Infrastructure Group, said in announcing MySQL 5.4:

"Without any modifications to your applications, MySQL 5.4 will transparently increase the performance and scalability of your applications, to enable them to scale under more demanding user and data processing loads. MySQL 5.4 is also better suited for scale-up deployments on SMP systems. Please download today's preview version and send us your feedback – we want this to be the fastest, highest-quality release of MySQL ever.”

The MySQL Conference and Expo runs through Thursday of this week, and features many keynote addresses and tutorial sessions. Jeremy Zawodny (who recently left Yahoo! for Craigslist) is doing a talk today on "MySQL and Search at Craigslist," and Mark Callaghan, from Google, is doing a keynote address called "This is Not a Web App: The Evolution of MySQL Deployment at Google." We'll have some interview input from the conference posted this week. Please stay tuned for that.