With MySQL 8.0, the version of MySQL Database Service aka MDS, the default character set has changed from latin1 to ut8mb4. The default collation is utf8mb4_0900_ai_ci but what does that mean ? and why are the utf8mb4_0900_* the recommended ones ?

Collations like utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci and utf8mb4_0900_ai_ci are based on Unicode Collation Algorithm (UCA). The number in the collation defines the UCA version:

• UCA 9.0.0 (recommended)
  - example: utf8mb4_0900_ai_ci
• UCA 5.2.0 (not recommended, see problems below)
  - example: utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci

The …

MySQL Database Service with HeatWave is now available in Brazil Southeast (Vinhedo) and Brazil East (Sao Paulo) regions.

With this addition, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure customers have more flexibility to deploy MySQL DB Systems closer to their applications, and it is now possible to select any of the 23 Oracle Cloud Infrastructure regions:

North America  US East (Ashburn)  US West (Phoenix)  US West (San Jose)  Canada Southeast (Toronto)  Canada Southeast (Montreal) Latin America  Brazil East (Sao Paulo)  Brazil Southeast (Vinhedo)  Chile Central (Santiago) EMEA  UK South (London)  UK West (Newport)  Germany Central (Frankfurt)  Switzerland North (Zurich)  Netherlands Northwest (Amsterdam)  Saudi Arabia West (Jeddah)  UAE East (Dubai) APAC  Japan East (Tokyo)  Japan Central (Osaka)  South Korea Central (Seoul)  South Korea North …

Recently I blogged about how to easily deploy a LAMP application to MDS.

Using the Terraform module (OCI Resource Manager’s Stack) you also have the possibility to choose the PHP version to install:

But as you should already know, not all versions support the latest default authentication method in MySQL 8.0: caching_sha2_password [1], [2], [3].

Most of the PHP applications are using mysqli and …

The MySQL Engineering team is proud to announce the Data Import feature in MySQL Database Service (MDS) and HeatWave.

The new Data Import enables faster and easier migrations to the MySQL Database Service. You can migrate from virtually any MySQL source, like AWS RDS/Aurora or MySQL on-premise, and from different versions, including 8.0, 5.7, or 5.6, directly to MySQL Database Service.

To migrate your existing MySQL databases, you perform two easy steps, in sequence or in parallel:

1. Use MySQL Shell to export data from an existing MySQL source into an OCI Object Storage bucket;
2. In MDS, create a new MySQL DB System referencing the bucket using a Pre-Authenticated Request (PAR). The data is imported automatically!

Together with MySQL Shell, MDS Data Import functionality dramatically reduces …

You’ve been using Amazon Aurora to manage your data but recently found out that you could manage the same data on Oracle cloud for a ⅓ of the cost on Amazon.  

You also learned that you could run your MySQL queries on Oracle Cloud 1100x faster than on Amazon Aurora, including Analytics queries.

Now did you know that unlike any other fork of MySQL from other cloud vendors, MySQL Database Service with the new HeatWave query accelerator uses the same database for your OLTP and OLAP queries?

In fact, MySQL Database Service on Oracle cloud is the only database service for MySQL that requires no ETL for OLAP, making it a lot simpler to manage data and a lot safer since data does not have to move between different databases. 
 

Watch the full webinar on how to migrate from Amazon Aurora to MySQL Database Service

…

On March 31st, 2021, MySQL introduced a new MySQL Database Service (MDS) option named MDS High Availability (MDS H/A).

“The High Availability option enables applications to meet higher uptime requirements and zero data loss tolerance. When you select the High Availability option, a MySQL DB System with three instances is provisioned across different availability or fault domains. The data is replicated among the instances using a Paxos-based consensus protocol implemented by the MySQL Group Replication technology. Your application connects to a single endpoint to read and write data to the database. In case of failure, the MySQL Database Service will automatically failover within minutes to a secondary instance without data loss and without requiring to reconfigure the application. See the documentation to learn more about MySQL Database Service High Availability.” From: …

MySQL Database Service is now easier to use and has flexible deployment options, including High Availability. While creating a new DB System using the web console, users can choose between Standalone, Highly Availability, and HeatWave deployments. The service will pre-populate the necessary fields with the recommended settings. You only need to provide the MySQL user name and password to get MySQL up and running.

With the Standalone option, users get a single-instance MySQL DB System back-ended by the resilient and secure OCI Block Volumes. This option is the most common for test and development environments.

The High Availability option enables applications to meet higher uptime requirements and zero data loss tolerance. When you select the High Availability option, a MySQL DB System with three instances is provisioned across different availability or fault domains. The data is replicated among the instances using a …

This post was written by:

Nicolas De Rico: Oracle Cloud Solutions Engineer - MySQL

Sergio J Castro: Oracle Cloud Solutions Engineer - Networking

From RDS to MDS

When an application reaches the maximum capabilities offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) RDS, it is often recommended to migrate to the AWS Aurora service.   However, Aurora is based on an older version of MySQL.  Aurora still does not support MySQL 8.0, which was released in April 2018.  Therefore, it may be difficult to port applications to Aurora, and later, out of Aurora because of its proprietary aspects.

Defy conventional wisdom by upgrading from RDS to MDS and access many benefits

Instead of …

We are pleased to announce that MySQL Database Service with HeatWave is now available in 22 regions worldwide. 

With the introduction of 10 new regions, MySQL Database Service is now present in all Oracle Cloud Infrastructure commercial regions:

North America  US East (Ashburn)  US West (Phoenix)  US West (San Jose)  Canada Southeast (Toronto)  Canada Southeast (Montreal) Latin America  Brazil East (Sao Paulo)  Chile Central (Santiago) EMEA  UK South (London)  UK West (Newport)  Germany Central (Frankfurt)  Switzerland North (Zurich)  Netherlands Northwest (Amsterdam)  Saudi Arabia West (Jeddah)  UAE East (Dubai) APAC  Japan East (Tokyo)  Japan Central (Osaka)  South Korea Central (Seoul)  South Korea North (Chuncheon)  Australia East (Sydney)  Australia Southeast (Melbourne)  India West (Mumbai)  India South …

In the previous blog we provided insights on how the MySQL database has been enhanced to integrate with a native high performance analytics engine – HeatWave: https://blogs.oracle.com/mysql/breakthrough-enhancements-in-mysql-database-service-with-analytics-engine

HeatWave is a new, massively parallel in-memory query engine developed by Oracle Labs designed for accelerating analytic workloads. HeatWave provides 100x-1000x acceleration over MySQL and MySQL compatible databases like Aurora. 

There are four key architecture choices which provide compelling performance with HeatWave:

1. An in-memory hybrid columnar format which is conducive to vector processing.
2. A massively parallel architecture which is enabled by a massively partitioned architecture.
3. State of …