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MySQL moves forward
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By: Philip Howard, Research Director - Data Management, Bloor Research Published: 7th May 2003 Copyright Bloor Research © 2003 |
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- February 2010
Making sense of it all 2 - February 2010
Bribery - February 2010
Making sense of it all 1 - February 2010
Columns aren't enough anymore - February 2010
Calpont finally comes to market - January 2010
Informatica 9: (r)evolutionary? - January 2010
Cadis EDM
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StumbleUponIn case you missed it, MySQL held its first user conference just before Easter. MySQL is, of course, the developer of the eponymous Open Source relational database.
How significant is MySQL? Well, it depends how you read the figures. According to the company, 29,000 copies of the database are downloaded every day and there are 4 million installations worldwide. However, most of these will be just suck it and see users.
More useful would be a figure for the number of users paying support fees. Not that MySQL is limited to the traditional Open Source model of free downloads and support charging: it also sells the software directly to other software vendors. Hyperion, for example, uses the product as an embedded database.
So, the jury is still out on the significance of MySQL. One of the reasons for this was made apparent at the user conference, where the company announced that a pre-alpha (whatever that is) version of its next release (5.0) was now available for download. However, it was the features of the new release that stood out: the product will now support foreign keys, stored procedures and database alerts.
The fact that these features will be in the next release explains why I have not previously taken more than a passing interest in the product: with the omission of these capabilities it simply was not suitable for use at the enterprise level, though their inclusion does not prove its suitability either. In any case I will be taking a more detailed look at the product in the next couple of months.
One thing that MySQL will not be including is XML support. In an interview with InfoWorld, Marten Mickos, the company's CEO, is reported as saying that if XML in the database becomes mainstream, we will do it. My personal view is that the relational model is about as complicated as it can get before it gets too complicated.
I agree. In fact I would go further: I think the relational model has been extended beyond its natural limits. The corollary to this is that from a technical perspective it makes much more sense to use, say, Software AG's Tamino as an XML database that sits side by side with your relational database, than it does to try and cram this quart into a relational pint pot.
However, the market doesn't work that way. The market works on the basis of perception and it listens to the stories that the 800lb gorillas tell. And the stories these vendors are telling is that you can implement XML in the database, that the overhead of mapping between XML structures and relational tables can be minimised if not totally reduced, and we have even got relational database vendors implementing hierarchical structures for XML indexing.
My God, hierarchies! This has been anathema in the rdbms market since it finally overcame the forces of darkness (that is, hierarchical and navigational databases) more than a decade ago. That is a measure of just how important XML is to the relational vendors.
The bottom line is that I think Marten has got this one wrong, even if he is right.
Reader Comments
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7th May 2003: 'anonymous' said:
Have you considered postgresql it has far more sql99 features than MySQL
7th May 2003: 'Rob' said:
[QUOTE]
According to the company, 29,000 copies of the database are downloaded every day and there are 4 million installations worldwide. However, most of these will be just "suck it and see" users.
[QUOTE]
Personally, I have 5 installations of MySQL. I don't pay a support fee. Nor am I a "suck it and see" user. When you're talking about open source products, there's more to it than those who pay. As a hint of how popular MySQL is, just look of some of the open source projects that depend on it.
8th May 2003: 'Joshua D. Drake' said:
PostgreSQL is also more stable and faster under load. It is also much more extensible in terms of server side functions and programmable languages.
8th May 2003: 'pwerf' said:
I fully agree with the author. The hierarchical datamodel of XML is a big step back from the relational datamodel. The '800lb gorillas' want us to believe we need it, because they believe that we believe we need it. In terms of datamodels XML has nothing to offer to us. We should make people aware of that instead of going along with the hype that everything should be XML!
9th May 2003: 'anonymous' said:
I manage a LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/Perl) installation for an e-commerce provider that supports 6 servers. We don't pay support fees either - all support is in-house. And no, I'm not a "suck it and see" user.
9th May 2003: 'LAMJ' said:
Linux+Apache+MySQL+Java installation. MySQL manages over 12 GB data at this point and I do not think I am a "suck it and see" user whatever this means. No support fees for MySQL.
11th May 2003: 'benjamin Smith' said:
I've been using PostgreSQL for years and it's never let me down.
Subselects, foreign keys, triggers, all the good stuff.
Traditionally, it's been lacking in two areas, one of them fixed:
1) alter table syntax broken when removing a field. (now fixed!)
2) Replication support sucks. (still waiting for this one - there is a replication patch, but I'm waiting until it's considered "stable")
Other than that, until you've worked with transactions, outer joins, and subselects, all in a single statement, you haven't experienced PostgreSQL.
It ROCKS!
16th May 2003: 'webjockey00' said:
For the bulk of us non-Fortune5000 folks, MySQL is the perfect fit. I don't think its fair to evaluate MySQL against its bulkier and of course vastly superior (read: obscenely priced) competitors. If you're going to give it a fair evaluation you should use an "open" set of metrics that conforms more closely to MySQL's targeted client base.
Comparing MySQL to Oracle, Sybase, etc. is like comparing a Geo to a Ferrari....what's the point?
18th May 2003: 'Philip Howard' said:
Two points: first, I plan to review MySQL in detail within the next couple of months and, no, I won't be directly comparing it with Oracle, DB2 etc..
Secondly, with regard to PostgreSQL the buzz that I hear is that there are a significant number of large enterprises looking at the potential use of MySQL but there appears to be much less interest (at this level) in PostgreSQL. This may, of course, be another VHS/Betamax or Oracle/Ingres thing but it certainly looks as if MySQL has a marketing edge if nothing else.
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