My calendar for the upcoming months is already filling up with conferences, trade fairs and other events at which I'll speak about MySQL. Here's a quick overview:

• This coming Thursday at 15:00 CET, I'll be speaking about "Backing up MySQL using file system snapshots" at the MySQL University. The session will be hosted live using DimDim, which is a great online conferencing and presentation system (Flash required). Attendance is free, so come and join me if you want to learn more about this backup technique!
• On Friday, 6th of March at 15:15 I'll give a presentation about "MySQL Backup and Security" in the …

This Thursday (February 26th, 14:00 UTC), Lenz Grimmer will give a MySQL University session on Backing up MySQL using file system snapshots. Lenz is a member of the MySQL Community team and the maintainer of the mylvmbackup tool. mylvmbackup is a tool for quickly creating backups of a MySQL server's data files. To perform a backup, mylvmbackup obtains a read lock on all tables and flushes all server caches to disk, creates a snapshot of the volume containing the MySQL data directory, and unlocks the tables again. The snapshot process takes only a small amount of time. When it is done, the server can continue normal operations, while the actual file backup proceeds.

For MySQL University sessions, point …

This Thursday (February 19th, 14:00 UTC), MC Brown & Trond Norbye will give a MySQL University session on Developing MySQL on Solaris. MC works on the MySQL Documentation Team and has been involved with quite a few Solaris things, for example porting MySQL to openSolaris. Trond has been involved with many things, including openSolaris, as you can see from his blog.

For MySQL University sessions, point your browser to this page. You need a browser with a working Flash plugin. You may register for a Dimdim account, but you don't have to. (Dimdim is the conferencing system we're using for MySQL University sessions. It …

This Thursday (February 12th, 14:00 UTC), MC Brown will give a MySQL University session on Using DTrace with MySQL. MC has been involved not just with documenting DTrace but also with DTrace development; see his recent blog post for details.

For MySQL University sessions, point your browser to this page. You need a browser with a working Flash plugin. You may register for a Dimdim account, but you don't have to. (Dimdim is the conferencing system we're using for MySQL University sessions. It provides integrated voice streaming, chat, whiteboard, …

Next Thursday (February 5th), we're continuing our series of sessions on MySQL performance measuring and improvements with Allan Packer's presentation titled MySQL Performance and Scalability Project - Issues and Opportunities. Allan works in the Performance and Applications Engineering department at Sun Microsystems, so again, expect to get some deep insights into the inner workings of the MySQL Server.

Allan is based in Australia, so note that this session will take place in the morning (Europe) or evening (APAC), respectively.

For MySQL University sessions, point your browser to this page. You need a browser with a …

This Thursday (January 29th), we're continuing our series of sessions on MySQL performance measuring and improvements with David Lutz' presentation titled Scalability Challenges in an InnoDB-based Replication Environment. David works in the Performance and Applications Engineering department at Sun Microsystems, so again, expect to get some deep insights into the inner workings of the MySQL Server.

David is based in California, so note that this session will take place in the morning (America) or evening (Europe), respectively.

For MySQL University sessions, point your browser to this page. You need a browser with a working …

This Thursday, we're continuing our series of sessions on MySQL performance measuring and improvements with Richard Smith's presentation titled Scalability by Design - Coding for Systems With Large CPU Counts. Richard works in the Performance and Applications Engineering department at Sun Microsystems, so again, expect to get some deep insights into the inner workings of the MySQL Server.

Richard is based in Australia, so note that this session will take place in the morning (Europe) or evening (APAC), respectively.

For MySQL University sessions, point your browser to this page. You need a browser with a working Flash plugin. …

Happy New Year!

MySQL University sessions are starting again after the winter break. This Thursday, we're beginning with Tim Cook's presentation on low-level locking in mysqld and InnoDB – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Tim works in the Performance and Applications Engineering department at Sun Microsystems. Expect to get some deep insights into the inner workings of the MySQL Server and InnoDB.

Tim's based in California, so note that his session will start rather late for Europeans.

For MySQL University sessions, point your browser to this page. You need a browser with a working Flash plugin. You may …

Due to illness, the MySQL University session "Using DTrace with MySQL" has been moved to February 12th, 2009. Sorry for the short notice (blame it on the flu which came on short notice, too.)

As a bonus, here's the MySQL University schedule for the beginning of next year:

This Thursday (December 18th), Martin "MC" Brown will talk about using DTrace with MySQL. MC is the Solaris (and, naturally, DTrace and ZFS) expert on the Sun Database Group documentation team. He's helped the openSolaris team port MySQL to openSolaris.

Note that we'll be using a new session address / Dimdim URL:

http://webmeeting.dimdim.com/portal/JoinForm.action?confKey=mysqluniversity

You can bookmark this address, since it will remain valid for all future MySQL University sessions. Remember, though, that the meeting room will open only 15 minutes before the session starts.

Dimdim is the conferencing system we're using for MySQL …