MySQL's Response to Oracle's Moves

mAriuZ writes "I've recently written two articles on this topic for Database Journal, the earlier, written after the InnoDB purchase, entitled Oracle's purchase of InnoDB, their release of Oracle Express, and the effect on MySQL, and the most recent, just after the Sleepycat purchase, entitled Pressure on MySQL increases as Oracle purchases Sleepycat, with more to come. Since I only do a monthly column for Database Journal, and things change quite quickly, I thought I'd post a few more thoughts on the topic."

NewSQL

[ExE122]

I really like this move of bringing Jim Starkey aboard. I've heard his name before, and I think he will really point MySQL's new engine in the right direction.

From the interview, I see that he is a big fan of Java. I've only worked with a slightly older version of MySQL but I feel that Java support is where MySQL is lagging behind Oracle. While MySQL works with a JDBC connection, an Oracle database seems to return faster results and more functional result sets. And I don't know too much about how well MySQL stores java code, but I know the newer versions of Oracle have really added some neat functionality with that.

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing where MySQL is headed and I'm glad they're standing up to Oracle's monopolizing.

Let's hope the best

[Rock-n-Rolf]

I'm looking forward to see MySQL come up with a real good open source transactional engine. MySQL has done a very good job in my point of view for the community, and besides that employes a fair amout of people. Getting a good engine as response to Oracles maneuver would be great.
My company uses the commercial version of MySQL in projects here and then, and I'd like to see it on more critical projects as well.

There is only one reason for these purchases

[Anonymous Coward]

I know a bunch of people who work at Oracle and they all agree: Oracle is 100% focused internally on SAP. Other theories may be interesting intellectual exercises, but Oracle is trying to kill MySQL because SAP wanted to use MySQL as an option for their systems to prevent customers from buying an Oracle database.

Oracle and SAP are in the middle of a nuclear exchange here, and Oracle in particular doesn't care one bit how much money it costs them or what collateral damage in the open source space is inflicted. Their PR people may say otherwise, but its not a big secret there.

MySQL gets the next great thing after Firebird?

[Jamesday]

Jim Starkey said that he'd been working on a new engine for the last six years but couldn't integrate it fully with Firebird because of architectual problems. MySQL has an architecture designed to accept pluggable storage engines, so MySQL might end up with what he thinks is the next great performance improvement after Firebird.

Re:Bruce Perens' thoughts on the subject

[Anonymous Coward]

What if Oracle really do "get it"?

That they understand the point of Open Source and their objective is to improve the standing of these applications by improving support / consulting / training etc (which is where they also plan to make money).

Re:Bruce Perens' thoughts on the subject

[Karzz1]

"The purchases send a message that MySQL won't achieve high-end database features without being beholden to Oracle."

"Even an outright purchase of MySQL by Oracle would not prevent anyone from using MySQL's server in a commercial application, without charge."

"You can't really buy an Open Source project. "

It seems to me that what Oracle is doing is not to try and take over or squash MySQL but rather to buy some more time. InnoDB is already OSS and I had thought Sleepycat was as well. MySQL has already been released under the GPL; no changing that retroactively. Even if Oracle had bought MySQL, the whole thing appears to be an attempt by Oracle to buy time while the new development team learns the innards of MySQL and/or codes a new transaction engine.

MySQL, with or without MySQL AB, will continue to exist and continue to be developed. Don't get me wrong, I am glad they declined the offer, but I don't think Oracle was looking to buy MySQL per se. They were just looking to buy time to keep the heat off.

Just my 2cents.

Wrong: It's the Other Way Around

[segedunum]

The pressure is ALL on Oracle. The reason why they're doing all this is because they're scared. The vast majority of companies out there running Oracle really are beginning to realise that they DO NOT need to spend anywhere near the amount they do on Oracle. They've heard of Postgres and especially MySQL, and MySQL are sufficiently cheap enough where companies get the right support they need without Postgres being any sort of threat - just a good old fashioned competitor.

Oracle have overinflated revenues and profits based on crap software, and they've been doing it for years. Their management and configuration tools are utter crap as well considering what people are paying. I don't know what they do in that company all day. Good riddance as far as I'm concerned.

The guy who wrote this article (possible an Oracle fan) is simply putting some positive spin on some pretty panic moves from Oracle. It isn't going to make a blind bit of difference to MySQL, or Postgres for that matter.

Re:As a MySQL shop...

[shirai]

You can do the equivalent of a hot backup without any special software by replicating your database to another server. When you need the backup, you stop the replication and make a backup of the copy. After you reconnect the replication, the replication server will catch up again.

This is documented in the excellent book "High Performance MySQL" by O'Reilly. One of the authors is a database guru at Yahoo.

We were using MS SQL and, while I was interested in open source databases, did not have the confidence to use an open source database until reading this book. I know many will point me to PostgreSQL too, but the tools and the references for MySQL were better.

Re:As a MySQL shop...

[arivanov]

Exactly.

This has been the part which pisses me off most about InnoDB. You cannot back it up online and the MySQL backup facilities introduced with 4.x are completely b0rken for it. At least in the GPL version. As a result I have had to write backup facilities of my own for the InnoDB databases we use (RT for once requires InnoDB)

Whatever MySQL will use and write it expect that it will not deliberately remove the backup facility to sell it as a special non-GPL addon. While MySQL has been known to withold some features from the GPL versions it has never shipped deliberate crippleware (and database without backup facilities is crippleware).

So as far as InnoDB is concerned - good buy and good riddance.

BerkleyDB is a different matter. It is heavily used as an embedded database. MySQL is only a minor use for it. In fact it has replaced Oracle as the dabatase of choice for telecommunications projects like high-end switches, network equipment, etc. Most of these used to have an Oracle backend 7 years ago. Not any more. Nowdays it is BDB turf. While there are replacements for it very few of them are as fully featured as BDB 3.x and higher.

Re:As a MySQL shop...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Mysqldump doesnt take the DB down also

It does. It locks tables while it's running. Don't ever use it on a production system since you'll get users very upset when their systems unexpectedly lock-up for very long periods of time. For our main transaction table, it takes mysqldump about 9 hours to complete. There's no way to use that on a production system.

We also can't use replication since that would require shutting down our main server for almost an entire week to copy the data to our remote site to setup the initial copy of the databases.

MySQL just isn't ready yet to be used. You can't even backup the damn thing. The only thing we can do is backup the ibdata files and hope for MySQL is smart enough to sort out the problems if we have to do a restore. It's a horrible way for a database vendor to treat their customers.

Re:But there are other problems

[symbolic]

According to the article, Oracle is also looking at Zend, the makers of PHP...PHP has been used very widely in the implentation of MySQL-based solutions. Granted, PhP isn't the only available option, but all these aquisitions could make for some headaches for a large number of users.

Bear in mind, that Oracle is also planning the release of a low-end product, Oracle Express, presumably to compete with the likes of MySQL and Postgres. I don't think I would ever use or recommend it, because at its core is the beginning of a short road to Oracle's usually-expensive licensing.

Re:Wrong: It's the Other Way Around

[doleman]

Oracle and MySQL are the two DBs with which I've worked extensively as a development administrator. From a very high-level/general standpoint, my basic comment is this: When I've used Oracle, my life has been complicated; when MySQL, I don't even have to think about the data.

The power of Oracle for certain applications cannot be denied, but as has been pointed-out, more people are realizing every day they have no need for that kind of horsepower. As a former colleague of mine was fond of pointing-out, it's like taking a 747 out of the hanger to make a trip to the corner stop-n-shop.

MySQL once filled what could've been called a "niche" market. But now, as more people understand what sort of back-end functionality they really need, that "niche" is looking more and more like a pervasive, critical marketplace. Oracle sees that and they are reacting. They are not positioned all that well to go toe-to-toe in the marketplace that is familiar territory to MySQL. My feeling is that what's going-on now is just "shots across the bow" leading-up to the big battle. How it all settles-out is anybody's guess.

Re:Bruce Perens' thoughts on the subject

[Bruce Perens]

Of course I submitted this piece to Slashdot days ago, only to see it rejected. But the editors don't seem to want to look at original work :-) Only when someone else chews over it does it become worthy for Slashdot. Com'on guys.

Re:Bruce Perens' thoughts on the subject

[Karzz1]

"The fact that these purchases are raising doubts as to MySQL's future..."

I don't believe that to be the case. In fact, if anything, I have to agree with Bruce Perens who states "(MySQL)CEO Mickos won't dabble at vengeance and will keep looking at offers that - if nothing else - increase the evidence for valuation of his company.".

It seems to me that if the "premier" database vendor (Oracle) in the market is looking to buy up a "lesser" database, it implies that the target database is (perceived to be) a threat in some way to the larger vendor; implying that the "lesser" is in fact not lesser. This suggests that MySQL *is* a solid database ready for the enterprise. Not to mention, the GPL version of MySQL is not going anywhere, regardless of what happens to MySQL AB. Its development cycle may be slowed for a bit if MySQL were bought out, but MySQL is too important of an application to too many companies with the budget/talent to let die. Someone will be developing MySQL for the foreseeable future.

Oracle just wants _the name_

[Anonymous Coward]

MySQL may be crap, but their marketing dept has done great things over the years.

Get a hold of that trademark, and you'll own the low-end market for quite some time to come.

Re:NewSQL

[BigZee]

Running java inside a database is the same reason you'd run any processing within the database - speed. I've seen many examples of developers, happily producing application code that runs a simple database query and then manipulates that data within the client. They are then surprised when performance is dreadful. When they try to tune their database query they find that there is nothing wrong with it. What is a problem though is that they are transfering data, piecemeal back and forth. What they could have done instead was to write a stored procedure in pl/sql (oracles native processing language) or java. The improvements in processing data within the database can be massive. This is the reason for doing processing within the database. Allowing java as a processing engine was Oracle giving developers a bit of flexability in their langauge choice.

Re:MySQL spatial data support

[ivoras]

It would have been even better if MySQL got it earlier (like PostgreSQL did from the start). It's a shame that MySQL started getting cool (and necessary!) features only now when the market pressure on its company increased. Prior to this, it was practically stagnating.

Re:Wrong: It's the Other Way Around

[w0lver]

Thanks for the condensing tone, did you really read what I said? When did I say that "the tuning tools on MySQL are anywhere near the ones on Oracle", I didn't. What I said is that Oracle is difficult to tune and takes specialized staff. "Full time on staff DBA that works with your development team, understands the data and understands how the system is being used" is great and goes so far, when you need to get greater performance, a expensive and rare person is required. BTW, what does a Oracle "Full time on staff DBA" cost? My point is that MySQL is much simpler and doesn't require the staff and expense of an Oracle. Sometimes a lightweight and simple system is going to get you the bang for the buck you need versus a heavy complicated system. My whole post was to point out that there are tradeoffs and just bashing MySQL without looking a context is bigoted.

Re:Let's hope the best

[Shawn is an Asshole]

PostgreSQL requires more work than that. By default it uses ident authentication which, ihmo, isn't good. For example, if you install phpPgAdmin you can log in as any user simply by typing in the username and anything you want for the username. Not cool. Enabling proper auth such as md5 isn't very easy for a n00b.

http://developer.apple.com/internet/opensource/pos tgres.html [apple.com]

Re:Huh?

[kcbrown]

The references to PostGreSQL and Ingress are really red herrings - as far as I know SAP has never suggested that they might be suitable backends for SAP, and its unlikely that they will do any work in that direction as Oracle could pull the rug out from under them again in the same way.

Uh, no. PostgreSQL isn't owned by any company. Because of that, Oracle can't do the same thing to it that it did to MySQL. That makes it an excellent possible backend for SAP, if SAP needed such a thing.

Furthermore, it's under the BSD license, so SAP wouldn't even need to redistribute the source in order to make use of it.

Re:Bruce Perens' thoughts on the subject

[jacem]

Unfortunately, powerful databases are large and complex beasts, and take years to get right. As much as I can understand why folks would flee from Larry, I think he'd be quite pleased if the mysql team were to go off and spend another five years recreating it.

Being an old fart I remember when MySQL first came out one of its selling features was that it was very small and lightweight. The developer lost some of the powerfull features that the big boys had but that was okay because MySQL was a little DB that you could run on a web server to keep track of Aunt Mildred's recipies and the like.

MySQL has of course since become a huge database with many of the abilities that it original small incarnation didn't need or want.

And now for something completely different

I can't even find what the the license cost for MySQL I have vague recollections of something about $250.00 for a commercial license free for non profit. On the web site there is a $595.00 survice contract, but no mention of a commercial use license.

On Oracle's web site I can get oracle 10 standard edition one for $4995.00 Processor Perpetual and enterprize for $40000.00 Processor perpetual. So I can only assume its double for your dual processor system.

So I can only assume that those of us that need a database and not even a feature rich database will simply move on to something else or pony up the $5000 to $40000 to have a DB to keep track of the CD collection.



JACEM

Oracle isn't anti-OSS

[rsavela]

I don't think that Oracle is really anti-Open Source. They have released a ton of stuff, most importantly to me: o Big memory pages for the Linux Kernel (helps with TLB misses for shared memory) o OCFS 2, a very good clustered filesystem. o Firewire code o Async I/O linux support Oracle was probably the first major database to run on Linux (version 7 worked, version 8.0 was supported). That was almost 10 years ago. Sun used to be the bread-and butter platform for Oracle. Linux has basically replaced it. Oracle already owns the database market. Most SAP sites already use Oracle as the database. The reality is, no matter how good their database is, they won't make any more money from it. Feature-wise, Oracle is more than 10 years ahead of MySQL. These are features I use all the time, every day. Oracle Fin Apps is the only place their business can grow. While it isn't a great product, neither is SAP R/3. These are big bits of software. Fin Apps 11iR10.2 is about 50GB of install media. (That is a lot of code). With Oracle's acquisition of Peoplesoft and JD Edwards, SAP is really the only competetion.

Re:Oracle isn't anti-OSS

[TallMatthew]

Sun used to be the bread-and butter platform for Oracle. Linux has basically replaced it

This is why Oracle chose to be "pro" open source in the first place. They knew if they could get their product running on Linux, they would have an easier time selling software licenses. Those $50k-$100k Sun enterprise purchase reqs were killing them. Once the economy started to bubble, their $50k-$100k licensing fees were getting lost in the shuffle. Ta Da! Linux servers are far less expensive, making the bundle far more attractive from a cost perspective. Not to mention why should they hand all that business to Sun when it's their product that's driving the hardware purchase in the first place?

And it worked. Oracle thrives. Sun suffers.

Oracle, like every other company with their toes in the open source bath water, is doing it to make money. There's an end game with these purchases. Being that Oracle and mysql are competitors, it's probably to squash. Witness the Peoplesoft "acquisition".