Today Sun Microsystems announced MySQL 5.4, a release that focuses on performance and scalability. For a long time it's been possible to escape the confines of a single system with MySQL, thanks to scale-out technologies like replication and sharding. But it ought to be possible to scale-up efficiently as well - to fully utilize the CPU resource on a server with a single instance.

MySQL 5.4 takes a stride in that direction. It features a number of performance and scalability fixes, including the justifiably-famous Google SMP patch along with a range of other fixes. And there's plenty more to come in future releases. For specifics about the MySQL 5.4 fixes, check out Mikael Ronstrom's blog.

So how well does MySQL 5.4 scale? To help answer the question I'm going to take a look at some performance data from one of Sun's CMT systems based on the UltraSPARC T2 chip. This …

Today Sun Microsystems announced MySQL 5.4, a release that focuses on performance and scalability. For a long time it's been possible to escape the confines of a single system with MySQL, thanks to scale-out technologies like replication and sharding. But it ought to be possible to scale-up efficiently as well - to fully utilize the CPU resource on a server with a single instance.

MySQL 5.4 takes a stride in that direction. It features a number of performance and scalability fixes, including the justifiably-famous Google SMP patch along with a range of other fixes. And there's plenty more to come in future releases. For specifics about the MySQL 5.4 fixes, check out Mikael Ronstrom's blog.

So how well does MySQL 5.4 scale? To help answer the question I'm going to take a look at some performance data from one of Sun's CMT systems based on the UltraSPARC T2 chip. This …

My previous blog entry on MySQL scalability on the T5440 is now completed by a Sun BluePrint that you can find here.

See you next time in the wonderful world of benchmarking....

My previous blog entry on MySQL scalability on the T5440 is now completed by a Sun BluePrint that you can find here.

See you next time in the wonderful world of benchmarking....

My previous blog entry on MySQL scalability on the T5440 is now completed by a Sun BluePrint that you can find here.

See you next time in the wonderful world of benchmarking....

Scaling MySQL on a 256-way T5440 server using Solaris ZFS and Java 1.7

A new era

In the past few years, I published many articles using Oracle as a database server. As a former Sybase system administrator and former Informix employee, it was obviously not a matter of personal choice. It was just because the large majority of Sun's customers running databases were also Oracle customers.

This summer, in our 26 Sun Solution Centers worldwide, I observed a shift. Yes, we were still seeing older solutions based on DB2, Oracle, Sybase or Informix being evaluated on new Sun hardware. But every customer project manager, every partner, every software engineer working on a new information system design asked us : Can we architect this solution with MySQL ?

In many cases, if you dared to reply YES to this question, the next interrogation would be about the scalability of the MySQL engine.

This is why I …

Scaling MySQL on a 256-way T5440 server using Solaris ZFS and Java 1.7

A new era

In the past few years, I published many articles using Oracle as a database server. As a former Sybase system administrator and former Informix employee, it was obviously not a matter of personal choice. It was just because the large majority of Sun's customers running databases were also Oracle customers.

This summer, in our 26 Sun Solution Centers worldwide, I observed a shift. Yes, we were still seeing older solutions based on DB2, Oracle, Sybase or Informix being evaluated on new Sun hardware. But every customer project manager, every partner, every software engineer working on a new information system design asked us : Can we architect this solution with MySQL ?

In many cases, if you dared to reply YES to this question, the next interrogation would be about the scalability of the MySQL engine.

This is why I …

Scaling MySQL on a 256-way T5440 server using Solaris ZFS and Java 1.7

A new era

In the past few years, I published many articles using Oracle as a database server. As a former Sybase system administrator and former Informix employee, it was obviously not a matter of personal choice. It was just because the large majority of Sun's customers running databases were also Oracle customers.

This summer, in our 26 Sun Solution Centers worldwide, I observed a shift. Yes, we were still seeing older solutions based on DB2, Oracle, Sybase or Informix being evaluated on new Sun hardware. But every customer project manager, every partner, every software engineer working on a new information system design asked us : Can we architect this solution with MySQL ?

In many cases, if you dared to reply YES to this question, the next interrogation would be about the scalability of the MySQL engine.

This is why I …

Find out about Sun's new 4-chip UltraSPARC T2 Plus system direct from the source: Sun's engineers.

Sun today announced the 4-chip variant of its UltraSPARC T2 Plus system, the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440. This new system is the big brother of the 2-chip Sun SPARC Enterprise T5140 and T5240 systems released in April 2008. Each UltraSPARC T2 Plus chip offers 8 hardware strands in each of 8 cores. With up to four UltraSPARC T2 Plus chips delivering a total of 32 cores and 256 hardware threads and up to 512Gbytes of memory in a compact 4U package, the T5440 raises the bar for server performance, price-performance, energy efficiency, and compactness. And with Logical Domains (LDoms) and Solaris Containers, the potential for server consolidation is compelling.

Standard configurations of the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 include 2- and 4-chip systems at 1.2 GHz, and a 4-chip system at 1.4 GHz. All of these configurations come with 8 cores per …

Find out about Sun's new 4-chip UltraSPARC T2 Plus system direct from the source: Sun's engineers.

Sun today announced the 4-chip variant of its UltraSPARC T2 Plus system, the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440. This new system is the big brother of the 2-chip Sun SPARC Enterprise T5140 and T5240 systems released in April 2008. Each UltraSPARC T2 Plus chip offers 8 hardware strands in each of 8 cores. With up to four UltraSPARC T2 Plus chips delivering a total of 32 cores and 256 hardware threads and up to 512Gbytes of memory in a compact 4U package, the T5440 raises the bar for server performance, price-performance, energy efficiency, and compactness. And with Logical Domains (LDoms) and Solaris Containers, the potential for server consolidation is compelling.

Standard configurations of the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 include 2- and 4-chip systems at 1.2 GHz, and a 4-chip system at 1.4 GHz. All of these configurations come with 8 cores per …