Hot on the heels of news that SquareSpace is using Oracle, comes news that LinkedIn is going whole hog with MySQL.

Actually, you could say that LinkedIn is buying into Sun. They are buying the MySQL Enterprise subscription and they’ll be running MySQL on Sparc servers and Solaris 10. They’ve signed up for Sun Professional Services, MySQL Professional Services, and Solaris Everywhere. I guess you could say that signed up for the full monty. Pun intended.

“Helping LinkedIn to scale their Web systems demonstrates the strength of combining the Sun and MySQL teams,“ said Zack Urlocker, vice-president of products, database group, Sun Microsystems.

Hot on the heels of news that SquareSpace is using Oracle, comes news that LinkedIn is going whole hog with MySQL.

Actually, you could say that LinkedIn is buying into Sun. They are buying the MySQL Enterprise subscription and they’ll be running MySQL on Sparc servers and Solaris 10. They’ve signed up for Sun Professional Services, MySQL Professional Services, and Solaris Everywhere. I guess you could say that signed up for the full monty. Pun intended.

“Helping LinkedIn to scale their Web systems demonstrates the strength of combining the Sun and MySQL teams,“ said Zack Urlocker, vice-president of products, database group, Sun Microsystems. “Our focus is on delivering customers innovative solutions in a straight-forward, cost-effective way — based on open source software and other high-performance, reliable platforms.“

This looks like Sun’s sweet spot. Hardware, Solaris, MySQL and professional services. I’d love to know what the price tag on this deal. This is really the kind of deal we need to hear more of if Sun (and MySQL) want to stay significant in the future.

I use LinkedIn as my primary professional social network. I never really considered what it was running under the covers but from the press release, it looks like they are long time MySQL users. Having them buy the enterprise subscription is a big win for Sun.

On the downside, I still think the enterprise subscription is too cheap. It’s almost like giving the software away.

LewisC

Technorati : linkedin, mysql, scalability, social network

I recently posted about the results of the EDB Open Source Survey. It doesn’t look like the raw data is going to be released. I was also reading about an O’reilly survey that costs $350 to see. Not that I am opposed to them making money, but I wanted to see the results and I think there are a lot people who feel the same. I have no idea if my survey is anything like O’reilly’s.

Anyway, I have created a new survey. It has about 10 demographics questions asking who you are, where you are, what kind of role you have, etc.

Hi. I’ve created a 25 question survey on databases and open source. There are about 10 demographic type questions (who are you, where are you, etc) and then a bunch of questions on databases and open source.

The results of this survey, and by results I mean all of the raw data, will be released to the public at the completion of the survey.

I ask for an email ID so that I can send you the results. This is totally optional and you will still be able to get the results should you chose not enter one.

I added a bunch of new definitions.  I finally added Oracle.

I have added quite a few new words to the glossary and fixed several misspellings around the site.
My next steps will be to complete the Postgres and MySQL installation guides.  I’m also taking requests for what anyone would like to see written next.
LewisC

I didn’t get a chance to go to OSCON 2008. Bummer. But I can live vicariously through google. So, along with all of the announcements you’ve heard from OSCON, I know present the OSCON 2008 – Google popularity contest. This is a completely unscientific survey of google hits. I was searching blogs and news. I started with just news but the blogs hits really upped the numbers.

To run these searches, I use “oscon 2008″ and the search term, for example:

“oscon 2008″ mysql

In the case of open source, I also quoted “open source”.

I’m using google’s about number. I didn’t sit and count each hit.

Yesterday I posted about the results of the EnterpriseDB open source survey. In that post, I said:

I’d like to see the survey again and compare the results to the survey itself.

I discovered that, as of right now, the survey is still online.

Still no information as to when, or if, the entire survey results will be released. That’s what I am most interested in.

LewisC

Technorati : database, enterprisedb, open source, postgres

Have you heard of Drizzle? It was announced at OSCON yesterday and is all over the blogosphere. From the Drizzle FAQ:

* So what are the differences between is and MySQL?

No modes, views, triggers, prepared statements, stored procedures, query cache, data conversion inserts, ACL. Fewer data types. Less engines, less code. Assume the primary engine is transactional.

Also from the FAQ is that, right now at least, there is no intention to make this run natively on windows and they make the point:

* “This is not a SQL compliant relational…”

Very true, and we do not aim to be that.

It is a fork of MySQL that takes it backward to pre-5.0 in features but hopefully greatly reduces the bugs and instabilities.

EnterpriseDB announced the results of the survey they did a few months ago at OSCON. Now, take the results with a grain of salt as it was done by EnterpriseDB. EnterpriseDB is based on Postgres so there is a vested interest in making Postgres sound good. Results can be skewed depending on how the survey is worded, what options are available as answers and who the respondents are.

The results summary is available for free.

Some key facts:

500 respondents. The download page says “500 corporate IT leaders”. Or maybe, 500 open source developers.

Only 9% of respondents indicated that they preferred commercial solutions over open source solutions.

I was browsing the web on this lazy Sunday afternoon and ran across a good article on the Rarest Words blog. The author was trying to get Django installed and running with Postgres. From the author’s own admissions, he is not a Postgres fanatic.

Well, this and last year I hear everywhere that PostgreSQL is the way to go and that usage of mySQL in 2008 makes people puke… But without any real arguments (besides “Postgres is the way to go”).

After some not so compatible errors with these not so compatible databases, the author did get it working and ran some benchmarks. Postgres did not turn out faster than MySQL.

I have begun the Glossary.  It is really bare bones at this point but I will be adding to it over time. If there is a word you would included, send it to or leave a post here.  The person who gives me the most words (wtih definitions) wins something.  I don’t know what yet [...]

I added General Topics on the lest menu bar.  It will contain detailed descriptions.  Right now it has a detailed description of replication and drills down into Oracle Advanced replication and Oracle Streams.  I plan to add Slony and MySQL replication.
I will also be adding a glossary over the next few days.  I haven’t decided [...]

Well, I am no longer working for EnterpriseDB. It was fun while it lasted but it’s over so I am moving on. I found a new job, locally. It’s pure Oracle and I will get to use Real Application Clusters in a production environment. That’s something I haven’t done in the past so I am looking forward to it. It’s also a java, .net and Oracle Forms shop and they are doing some interesting things with telecommunications and SMS.

From now on, I will only need to travel for conferences. No more trips to New Jersey. That’s kind of a drag as I was almost at elite status on Continental.

I ran across a new magazine, Oracle Journal by sys-con. It must be very new because while browsing around the site, I was unable to actually find any Oracle content. It has three news stories (paragraph long news blurbs actually) that are repeated at least 4 times on the page that I can see.

It is an interesting concept. I like Oracle magazine but it is published by Oracle. There’s a certain conflict as far as hard hitting news goes. But for a magazine to work, it actually needs content, not just ads. I wonder if they need a writer? I could do some articles for them. Hmmm.