May 24, 2013

ZFS on Linux and MySQL

I am currently working with a large customer and I am involved with servers located in two data centers, one with Solaris servers and the other one with Linux servers. The Solaris side is cleverly setup using zones and ZFS and this provides a very low virtualization overhead. I learned quite a lot about these [...]

Experiences with the McAfee MySQL Audit Plugin

I recently had to do some customer work involving the McAfee MySQL Audit Plugin and would like to share my experience in this post. Auditing user activity in MySQL  has traditionally been challenging. Most data can be obtained from the slow or general log, but this involves a lot of data you don’t need too, and [...]

MySQL and the SSB – Part 2 – MyISAM vs InnoDB low concurrency

This blog post is part two in what is now a continuing series on the Star Schema Benchmark. In my previous blog post I compared MySQL 5.5.30 to MySQL 5.6.10, both with default settings using only the InnoDB storage engine.  In my testing I discovered that innodb_old_blocks_time had an effect on performance of the benchmark.  There was [...]

Replication in MySQL 5.6: GTIDs benefits and limitations – Part 1

Global Transactions Identifiers are one of the new features regarding replication in MySQL 5.6. They open up a lot of opportunities to make the life of DBAs much easier when having to maintain servers under a specific replication topology. However you should keep in mind some limitations of the current implementation. This post is the [...]

Webinar: SQL Query Patterns, Optimized

Next Friday, May 31 at 10 a.m. Pacific, I’ll present Percona’s next webinar, “SQL Query Patterns, Optimized.” Based on my experiences solving tough SQL problems for Percona training and consulting, I’ll classify several common types of queries with which developers struggle. I’ll test several SQL solutions for each type of query objective, and show how [...]

Virident vCache vs. FlashCache: Part 2

This is the second part in a two-part series comparing Virident’s vCache to FlashCache. The first part was focused on usability and feature comparison; in this post, we’ll look at some sysbench test results. Disclosure: The research and testing conducted for this post were sponsored by Virident. First, some background information. All tests were conducted [...]

Virident vCache vs. FlashCache: Part 1

(This is part one of a two part series) Over the past few weeks I have been looking at a preview release of Virident’s vCache software, which is a kernel module and set of utilities designed to provide functionality similar to that of FlashCache. In particular, Virident engaged Percona to do a usability and feature-set [...]

Announcing Percona XtraBackup 2.1.1 GA

Percona is glad to announce the release of Percona XtraBackup 2.1.1 on May 15th 2013. Downloads are available from our download site here and Percona Software Repositories. Percona XtraBackup enables backups without blocking user queries, making it ideal for companies with large data sets and mission-critical applications that cannot tolerate long periods of downtime. Offered [...]

Is Synchronous Replication right for your app?

I talk with lot of people who are really interested in Percona XtraDB Cluster (PXC) and mostly they are interested in PXC as a high-availability solution.  But, what they tend not to think too much about is if moving from async to synchronous replication is right for their application or not. Facts about Galera replication [...]

Webinar: MySQL 5.6 Performance Schema

This Wednesday, May 15 at 10 a.m. Pacific, I’ll be leading  a Webinar titled, “Using MySQL 5.6 Performance Schema to Troubleshoot Typical Workload Bottlenecks.” In this Webinar I will offer an overview of Performance Schema, focusing on new features that have been added in MySQL 5.6, go over the configuration and spend most time showing [...]