[dba-Tech] Relational v NoSQL

Peter Brawley peter.brawley at earthlink.net
Sat Feb 9 19:48:50 CST 2013


On 2013-02-09 5:49 PM, Hans-Christian Andersen wrote:
>
> > My hosting providers went to 5.5 soon after its general release.
>
> Then you are quite fortunate! Most hosting providers I have seen are 
> barely shy of MySQL 5.1. Apparently GoDaddy - the big one - is still 
> only MySQL 5.0 (and 4.1, if needed).

Excuse the Latin, GoDaddy is a bad joke.
>
> Whats your hosting provider?

HostMDS in Toronto. Think Budget Rent-A-Car.

>
> > No, there's a lot of stuff listed at 
> http://dev.mysql.com/doc/relnotes/mysql/5.6/en/.
>
> "What Is New in MySQL 5.6
> This section summarizes what has been added to and removed from MySQL 
> 5.6."
>
> http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/mysql-nutshell.html
>
> I don't know about you, but I don't see a whole lot of exciting things 
> here other than "improved that, enhanced this, better security here". 
> Do you see anything noteworthy here?

Exciting I don't claim. Volume I do. I'm speaking of the detailed 
release-by-release notes, I gotta study 'em to keep our book on MySQL up 
to date; I know I've done a lotta writing these last few months.

>
> > And again, for whether or when MariaDB will supplant MySQL, I don't 
> dounbt Monty's team is doing good things with MariaDB. The question's 
> when there'll be enough hosting providers offering MariaDB-MySQL 
> interchangeability to support a large exodus from MySQL, and whether 
> there's a compelling business reason for many people who depend on 
> MySQL to switch to MariaDB.
>
> 1. There is no cost to hosting providers to switch to MariaDB if it 
> maintains compatibility, short of actually installing it. I honestly 
> doubt most of them pay MySQL for support, but that's my guesstimation 
> anyhow.

Agreed, no cost, Just another product to maintain. When that's a 
database, it's not trivial. They'll do it only when demand demands, I 
ween. And I don't see that demand yet.

>
> 2. That's the beauty of open source. It can go either way. Unlike in 
> the proprietary world, where you fear lawsuits all the time, there is 
> little Oracle can do so long as MariaDB sticks with the GPL license. 
> It all comes down to mindshare. It has happened plenty of times before 
> in the open source world. I don't have the power to predict the 
> future, but there's no reason why it can't happen again. Especially if 
> MariaDB keeps plowing ahead and adding more features that developers 
> like and MySQL keeps stagnating, as it has been for a while.

I too wish Monty could soon slay the closed source, profit-crazed beast.

It just doesn't seem to be happening. Indeed after a good start (13% in 
Oct 2011), MariaDB's market share growth seems to have stalled. Again, I 
suspect hosting provider inertia.

For me the question's pragmatic: at what level of market share growth 
can we expect to sell a lot more books if we cover MariaDB?

>
> 3. It is possible that Oracle will see movement to MariaDB as a kick 
> up the arse and get their act together. I haven't really seen that 
> yet, but anything is possible.

Larry's ass is too well protected.

PB

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