MySQL is the company's SQL now...
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So, what do you do to the worldâs nicest database, in order to get some enterprise salesâ¦ Letâs face it; MySQL is a fabulous database engine. Not only is it free, itâs small, powerful and easy to drive. It also runs happily on free operating systems and so it can be used to create incredibly cost-effective database servers.â¦
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Joshua Eichorn points out an interesting project in a new post to his blog today - quercus.   I found an interesting project, quercus that compiles PHP to Java Bytecode allowing it to run ontop of the Java Resin Application Server. It has a couple neat features, one being PHP6 compatible unicode support, the other being easy integration between Java and PHP code.   He gave it a shot and notes that the performance seems decent and allows you to compensate for some of the differences in the PHP API it supports and what you're using via a Java class. According to their site:   Quercus is Caucho Technology's 100% Java implementation of PHP 5 released under the Open Source GPL license. Quercus comes with many PHP modules and extensions like PDF, PDO, MySQL, and JSON. Quercus allows for tight integration of Java services with PHP scripts, so using PHP with JMS or Grails is a quick and painless endeavor.   It includes several extensions too, including the JSON library, APC, MySQL and Oracle support, and PDF functionality. Check out their Getting Started guide, documentation, or their wiki for more information.
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Stefan Esser points out a new patch today - CORE GRASP - from the Core Security Technologies group that provides taint support surrounding the mysql_query function.   Their implementation adds a tainted or not flag for every byte so that it is possible on invocation of mysql_query() to determine any kind of injection.   Unfortunately, Stefan also mentions two big issues it might have from the get-go: the overhead for the memory needed can slow things down and an incorrect parsing in their query handler could lead to injection attacks.
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MySQL has laid out its software road map through 2009, including some code contributed by Google and security improvements that are due in MySQL 7.0.Earlier this year Google signed a Contributor License Agreement, which provides the legal framework under which MySQL can include code from another company in its database, MySQL co-founder and Vice President David Axmark said on Tuesday.Google is secretive about the distributed architecture underlying its services, but it&#39;s known to be one of MySQL&#39;s biggest users, running hundreds or even thousands of its databases worldwide.The search company has done a lot of work customizing MySQL to meet its special needs, which include better database replication, and tools to monitor a high volume of database instances, Axmark said in an interview at MySQL&#39;s user conference in Paris.MySQL will include some of those capabilities in future versions of its database, probably in point upgrades to MySQL 6.0, which is scheduled for general availability in late 2008, Axmark said.Google benefits because the add-ons become part of the official MySQL product and are included in big fixes and future upgrades. MySQL could benefit from some of Google&#39;s custom software -- although it requires considerable work by the database vendor.&quot;It takes time to analyze what&#39;s relevant for everyone, what&#39;s doable, and how can we work it into a new version,&quot; said Kaj Arno, MySQL vice president for community relations. &quot;There&#39;s huge potential, but there&#39;s also lots of work.&quot;Google develops the add-ons only for the operating system it uses, Linux, so MySQL will need to port, test, and document the additions for the 15 or so OSes it supports.The features in MySQL 6.0 are already fairly set, Axmark said, so the Google code won&#39;t appear before version 6.1, due in early 2009. Some Google code is already in the source code for MySQL 4.1, he said, but not in a supported MySQL product.The companies are in close contact, Axmark said. The Google engineer in charge of its MySQL deployments spent several days at MySQL&#39;s internal developer meeting in Heidelberg, Germany, last month. Google has also released source code for some MySQL tools it developed.At its developer event in Paris, MySQL laid out an unusually long roadmap stretching to MySQL 7.0, which will be generally available in late 2009 and focus on security improvements for enterprise users.&quot;Many of you have told us you want better security in the database, and we have listened,&quot; Robin Schumacher, MySQL director of product management, told developers.Many of the features are standard in more mature databases from IBM and Oracle, Schumacher acknowledged in an interview. MySQL positions itself as a low-cost alternative to those products, with less sophisticated features that are sufficient for most users, most of the time.Schumacher said version 7.0 will support role- and group-based security, which allows administrators to set privileges for groups of users centrally instead of individually. It will also have &quot;transparent data encryption&quot; built into the database, so developers don&#39;t have to include it at the application level.MySQL hopes the security features will win it financial, government and retail customers, some of whom add the capabilities themselves. &quot;If we get the door slammed in our face in an account, this is one of the reasons it happens,&quot; Schumacher said.In the nearer term, MySQL 5.1 is scheduled for general availability in the first quarter next year. Advances include table and index partitioning, which should boost data warehousing performance, and the option of row-based replication, which lets companies create more exact back-up replicas.The big change in 6.0 will be the availability of&#160;MySQL&#39;s storage engine, Falcon. The most popular storage engine for MySQL has historically been InnoDB, but two years ago Oracle acquired InnoDB&#39;s developer, Innobase. Oracle continued to license the software to MySQL, but MySQL wanted an alternative.Falcon will do crash recovery and roll-back operations faster than InnoDB because they are done from main memory, Schumacher said, but some InnoDB features, like foreign key support and full-text indexing, won&#39;t be supported until MySQL 6.1.6.1 is due to go into beta in mid-2008 and start to ship widely in 2009. Improvements include better prepared statements and server-side cursors, Schumacher said.Despite all the buzz a few years ago about native XML (Extensible Markup Language) support, Axmark said he&#39;s still waiting for a clear signal about what customers want. Until then it&#39;s not a big priority for MySQL, although there are some XML capabilities in 5.1, he said.
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Back in 1995, I read an article about the scarcity of webmasters and switched my specialty. I often look for hot spots and retool to meet the needs. Before 1995, Oracle Financials was hot. I just didnât care much for the rigidity of technology. But, I was an accountant and an IT guy so I had tooled up for database programming. read more
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In a recent post Brian Moon points out an advancement in something he's very excited about - the MySQL native driver for PHP.   I have been excited about the MySQL native drive (mysqlnd) since I first heard about it.  They are looking for testers now.   Brian also includes comments about the fact that the driver was originally intended for use in PHP6 and how some people have been talking about a back-port to PHP4 for those still hanging on.   Check out this post from Lukas Smith on the same subject with a bit more information on what the driver is and what it could mean for the PHP community as a whole.
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InfoWorld - With Sun Microsystems' $1 billion acquisition of open source database vendor MySQL announced Wednesday, Sun gets ownership of a major player in the open source software industry while MySQL gets the backing of a multibillion-dollar, established systems company.
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Doing everything in just PHP can be a great thing when you're working with web applications, but what happens when a project comes along that was already using something like Ruby on Rails? You'd have to get in there and learn the language to get up to speed. One thing that can help, though, is a "transition" piece to show you what functionality matches up with the language you're familiar with - PHP. This new article (series) from LoLoCoJr aims for just that.   In recent weeks I was busy converting a fairly large PHP application to Rails. The existing PHP application is about 65.500 lines of intermingled PHP and HTML/CSS code. Yep, a classic PHP application without any database abstraction layer, no templating, no MVC.   This is just part one of the series, but it jumps right in to things - the list of deliverables to break out the application into easy to chew chunks and a look at a Ruby config and database connections (MySQL to PostgreSQL)
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Blog: The database software maker has a new version out that can talk to other databases written in SQL.
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Sun's acquisition of MySQL has broad implications for the software industry.
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Company goes head-to-head with MySQL and PostgreSQL with a free version of its ASE database for Linux.
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Sun Microsystems' purchase earlier this month of open-source database maker MySQL may have been pennywise and pound-foolish, with many observers suggesting that Valley stalwart Sybase was in fact the smarter buy. The logic is compelling -- but won't someone stand up for the cussedly independent?
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With Sun Microsystems' $1 billion acquisition of open source database vendor MySQL announced Wednesday, Sun gets ownership of a major player in the open source software industry while MySQL gets the backing of a multibillion-dollar, established systems company.Called the largest open source software deal ever, the merger makes Sun the owner of a critical part of the popular LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL Perl/Python/PHP) open source software stack. Sun already has been offering up its own software to open source, even basing its development tools strategy on the open source NetBeans platform."MySQL is an important part of the LAMP stack, [and] has grown to be enterprise-ready technology used by large organizations, and Sun is now a major player in the LAMP stack," said Raven Zachary, analyst with The 451 Group. MySQL customers get the benefit of a larger support organization, Zachary said.Sun, meanwhile, will push MySQL as enterprise-ready technology and as an alternative to proprietary databases like Oracle, he said. "I think Sun has really been struggling in building a software revenue stream around its open source projects, and I think for them to take on MySQL, now they have a very successful revenue stream around an open source software [stack] that was lacking before," said Zachary.The deal was applauded by open source CRM vendor SugarCRM, PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) tools vendor Zend Technologies, and SpringSource, makers of the open source Spring Framework for Java development."I think it's an incredibly smart move by Sun and Jonathan Schwartz," said SugarCRM CEO John Roberts. While Roberts said he had been looking forward to an IPO by MySQL, the deal nonetheless makes sense. Sun, Roberts said, gets a mission-critical database that is "probably the most widely used database on the planet today."Zend and SpringSource had similar impressions."I think open source has gone mainstream," and Sun has put its stamp on it, said Zend CEO Harold Goldberg. "We think it's a great day for open source, and we think it's a great day for the LAMP stack.""The acquisition of MySQL by Sun marks one of the most significant recognitions of the importance and power of open source as a disruptive force in technology," said SpringSource CEO Rod Johnson in his blog.Sun heralded the deal as its entrance into the database market and will offer global support offerings for MySQL. "We're announcing we're entering the $15 billion database business," said Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz on a conference call with MySQL and Sun executives.By Sun's acquisition, MySQL overcomes its biggest impediment: Ensuring peace of mind to a global company that wants to put MySQL into a mission-critical deployment, Schwartz said. "It?s very clear to us that that is what our customers have come to expect from Sun," he said. "We believe there are synergies in putting the two companies together that will allow MySQL to grow more rapidly and allow Sun to grow more rapidly."New customers for both MySQL and Sun MySQL has been extending into mission-critical, high performance environments in the last couple of years, said Marten Mickos, who has been MySQL CEO and will become a senior vice president at Sun. "With this acquisition by Sun, we'll be able to offer those customers even better service, a full stack and at the same time heterogeneous solutions running on a number of platforms with a number of environments," Mickos said. "It strengthens our ability to serve our existing customers and very importantly serve the new customers coming over as enterprises move over to Web-based architectures in their enterprise infrastructure."The acquisition complements Sun technology, said Ian Murdock, chief OS strategist at Sun in a separate interview. "If you think about the two companies together in terms of technology offerings and technology basis, it's very complementary," he said. Sun is in the enterprise and has a substantial Web presence, while MySQL has a substantial Web presence and is entering the enterprise, Murdock said.The MySQL database runs on several platforms, including Linux and Sun's Solaris. MySQL does not see the database market, though, as saturated. "One of the things that's always been exciting about MySQL is we're really going after a new market of database users," with success in the Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 and SaaS (software as a service) spaces, said Zack Urlocker, MySQL executive vice president of products. Sun and MySQL also have joint customers such as eBay, he said."I think putting the two companies together, both in terms of what Sun can do to accelerate MySQL adoption and what MySQL can do to accelerate Sun's position in the Web space is going to be very interesting to watch," Murdock said. "This allows us to reach into new markets and have conversations with enormous numbers of developers and startups and other companies that are using MySQL in droves," he said, also pointing out that Sun could sell its workstations and servers to these users.Although Sun has been involved in the development of the rival open source database, PostgreSQL, Schwartz said Sun was reaffirming its commitment to PostgreSQL. "We are firmly committed to figuring out the ways we can optimize and integrate innovations across the two communities. Between MySQL and PostgreSQL, we probably have a large portion of the market covered," said Schwartz.Sun's Josh Berkus is the lead on the PostgreSQL project. Berkus said Sun would continue to accommodate multiple databases.The idea of Sun buying MySQL was born out of a dinner between Schwartz and Mickos a few months ago, Urlocker said. Although MySQL had been on a track to deliver an IPO, the chance to become part of Sun "became just too exciting for us," he said. "This enables us to accelerate our growth onto a much larger kind of platform in the industry."MySQL will become part of Sun as part of the deal, which is expected to be completed in about two months. MySQL products likely will continue to be offered via the same open source subscription strategy.
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If you had any doubts about Sun Microsystems? commitment to open source, it?s time to set them aside. Sun put its money where its mouth is Wednesday, with the announcement that it would buy open source database vendor MySQL for a whopping $1 billion. If the price tag set tongues wagging, however, it was no more tantalizing than the question that immediately sprung to the minds of IT managers everywhere: Now that Sun owns MySQL, what on earth does it plan to do with it?Sun has toyed with the idea of a database offering of its own for at least two years. But in a market where basic relational database functionality is increasingly considered a commodity, competing successfully is no mean feat, even when playing the open source card.Certainly, Sun isn?t the first to try it. In 2001, leading Linux vendor Red Hat launched its own branded version of the open source PostgreSQL database, only to scrap the project a year later after deciding that servicing and supporting a database was not its core competency. Similarly, Computer Associates opened the source of the Ingres database in hopes of becoming a one-stop shop for customers in need of an enterprise application stack, but had little luck winning market share away from the likes of IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle. CA spun Ingres off into its own company in 2005, where it continues to nurture a small installed base.In his blog announcing the MySQL acquisition Wednesday, Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz remains characteristically effusive. ?Until now, no platform vendor has assembled all the core elements of a completely open source operating system for the Internet,? he wrote. ?No company has been able to deliver a comprehensive alternative to the leading proprietary OS.?Yet CA?s and Red Hat?s experiences seem to discredit the idea that a stem-to-stern platform offering from a single vendor is what customers really want. Not to mention the fact that Sun already offers enterprise support for PostgreSQL, a competing open source database that is widely perceived as being technologically superior to MySQL. Schwartz reaffirmed Sun?s commitment to PostgreSQL in a conference call Wednesday, causing some analysts to speculate whether the MySQL acquisition was anything more than a billion-dollar PR stunt.But there may be method to Sun?s madness. The considerable goodwill that MySQL has cultivated among enterprise customers could have benefits for Sun that technology alone never could.?I think the answer is simple: ubiquity,? says Andy Astor, CEO of EnterpriseDB, which markets a high-performance, commercial database product based on PostgreSQL. ?[Sun is] a big company; to move their needle, they need to see millions of potential users, which MySQL provides.?According to MySQL?s own estimates, there are already some 11 million active installations of the MySQL database worldwide. What?s more, MySQL is virtually the de facto standard relational database for rapid application development, particularly for the Web. In future, as these fledgling sites mature and their needs broaden, they will become natural customers for Sun?s enterprise support offerings.Sun?s new role as steward of MySQL is sure to ruffle feathers in the software industry, as well -- particularly at Oracle, which, with its recent acquisitions, increasingly competes with Sun in the enterprise application platform arena. In 2005, Oracle bought Innobase, makers of a plug-in component that adds advanced features to MySQL, in what was widely perceived as a competitive swipe at the open source upstart.For his part, MySQL CEO M?rten Mickos has repeatedly denied that his company?s aim is to displace high-end databases such as Oracle?s. And that?s only appropriate; for those customers who demand Oracle?s most advanced features, no other product will do. But Mickos? protestations verge on false modesty. On the low end, MySQL is an absolute pandemic, and it?s already making headway into the mid-tier territory traditionally owned by the likes of Microsoft. That trend is only likely to accelerate with Sun?s backing.What is unclear, however, is whether Sun will take any steps to alter MySQL?s license terms. Licensing and project governance have played key roles in MySQL?s success, and as a result, MySQL?s license policy is somewhat more restrictive than the one that Sun has used for the rest of its software portfolio.Although all MySQL code is available under the GNU GPL (General Public License), the product is developed primarily by full-time employees of MySQL. Furthermore, the MySQL company requests that community developers sign over copyright to their code contributions to the company before those changes become part of the main MySQL code base. This allows the company to offer a separate, commercial version of its database for enterprise customers who don?t want to be bound by the terms of the GPL. Initially, this license structure was used mainly to allow companies to embed the MySQL database into their own products, but the MySQL company was criticized last year for making it more difficult for non-paying customers to download the enterprise version of the database.By comparison, Sun has been freer with its own code, foregoing separate, commercial versions of its products in favor of a subscription-based enterprise support scheme. PostgreSQL is arguably even more free; it is governed in a much more distributed, community-based fashion than MySQL, and its permissive license even allows proprietary derivatives, such as EnterpriseDB.Ironically, however, MySQL?s stringent intellectual property policy may be precisely what makes it so appealing to Sun. Red Hat Database and Sun?s own version of PostgreSQL were merely different retoolings of an existing open source software product, one that customers could just as easily download from elsewhere. To the enterprise IT community at large, however, there?s really only one MySQL -- and from now on, that name will be indelibly associated with Sun. Remember, for all Sun?s talk about open source, this is a company that banks so heavily on its trademarks that it had its stock ticker symbol changed to JAVA.Ah, but there?s the rub. Sun open-sourced the Java platform in 2006, and while the move has been widely hailed by developers, not everyone in the business community was as thrilled with the idea of Sun giving away its crown jewels. As former Sun vice president Larry Singer put it, ?We [at Sun] were spending all of our time and attention ? on things that were important from an intellectual standpoint, important from an innovative standpoint, [but it was] hard to understand how they were going to drive revenue for the company.?So far, MySQL has built a solid business selling open source database software. Whether Sun has the strategic acumen to take that success to the next level, however, remains to be seen. But stay tuned; after all, $1 billion gives Sun a hell of an incentive.
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PHP Magazine has a new pointer to a new article from MySQL Database Handling In PHP.
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Maarten Balliauw has posted about an interesting new development he's made and is sharing with the PHP community - PHPLinq (Language Integrated Query).   Perhaps you have already heard of C# 3.5's "LINQ" component. LINQ, or Language Integrated Query, is a component inside the .NET framework which enables you to perform queries on a variety of data sources like arrays, XML, SQL server, ... These queries are defined using a syntax which is very similar to SQL. [...] I thought of creating a similar concept for PHP. So here's the result of a few days coding.   The library is available for download and some examples are included to show it in action (both in a simple example and in a more complex search on a series of objects).
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It's not every day that the entire technical press goes bonkers over news in the open source world, but that's what happened last week, when Sun announced that it was buying MySQL.  Doubtless, the pleasant roundness of the sum involved - $1 billion â helped, as did the fact that most of that was cash.  But leaving aside the sense of satisfaction that events in the free software world should be suddenly thrust centre-stage, Sun's move does raise a larger question about the fate of all open source start-ups. read more