Starting with MySQL 5.5 it is possible to configure semi-synchronous replication. As you probably know, by default, MySQL replication is asynchronous.  Asynchronous replication means that events/transactions applied on one server are not immediately applied on the other one. In the specific context of MySQL such behavior means that the MySQL Master writes transactions/events to the local binary logs, however it has no idea when the slave(s) will get and process them. Of course such configuration can lead, in case of failover, to some transaction loss since there is no guaranty that the transactions have been transmitted on the standby server(s).

Just in time for the holidays, SkySQL has published new white papers to keep you occupied while dealing with holiday travel delays, waiting for your turkey to roast, or hiding from your in-laws! Download them, today:

• "Should I Migrate to Version 5.3 of the MariaDB Database?" - Written by Mark Riddoch, SkySQL's Senior Software Architect, this white paper looks at those features that have been added in the version 5.3 of the MariaDB™ database and compares them to what is available with version 5.5 of the MySQL® database. This white paper addresses the value that might be gained from migrating from version 5.5 of the MySQL database (or earlier) to version 5.3 of the MariaDB database.

• …

Global Transaction IDs - simplifying replication management

There will be a webinar this Wednesday where you can get the latest information on all of the great new content that has been included in the MySQL 5.6 Development Releases as well as some features that are still being developed. As always, the webinar is free but you need to register here in advance. Even if you can’t attend the live event it’s worth registering so that you get sent the replay.

Some of the topics we’ll be discussing are:

• Enhanced data integrity: Global Transactions Identifiers, Crash-Safe Slaves and Replication Event Checksums;
• High performance: Multi-Threaded Slaves, Binlog Group Commit and Optimized …

If you were unable to attend the live webinar (or you want to go back and listen to it again) then it’s now available to view on-line here.

Databases are the center of today’s web and enterprise applications, storing and protecting an organization’s most valuable assets and supporting business-critical applications. Just minutes of downtime can result in significant lost revenue and dissatisfied customers. Ensuring database highly availability is therefore a top priority for any organization. Tune into this webcast to learn more.

The session discusses:

1. Causes, effect and impact of downtime
2. Methodologies to map applications to HA solution
3. Overview of MySQL HA solutions …

Here are the slides to my first talk at Percona Live UK 2011: Choosing a MySQL High Availability solution.1

1. 1. See this for a review of the conference as a whole: http://openlife.cc/blogs/2011/october/thanks-percona-and-attendees-great-percona-live-uk-2011

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I’ll be presenting a free one-hour webinar on preventing downtime in production MySQL servers, in conjunction with the ODTUG. It is scheduled on Thursday, November 10, 2011 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM EST, and you can register for free.

Here’s an abstract of what you’ll learn:

Everyone wants to prevent database downtime by being proactive, but how effective are the common measures such as inspecting logs and analyzing SQL? To be truly proactive, one must prevent problems, which requires studying and understanding the reasons for downtime. We have analyzed a selection of emergency issues that we have solved, to better understand what types of problems really occur in production environments. The results are somewhat surprising, and will be detailed in this talk. Most incidents we found were not MySQL-specific and will be familiar to Oracle DBAs as well as …

I'm looking at the schedule for Percona Live UK coming up in 2 weeks from now and realize there's quite a smorgasbord of High Availability talks. What's more interesting, I see that we will be presenting some opposite opinions for the audience to digest:

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Stockholm - October 4th 2011

Severalnines, provider of automation and management software for easily usable, highly available and auto-scalable cloud database platforms, today announces the latest release of its flagship product ClusterControl™ for MySQL Replication.

Introducing ClusterControl™ for MySQL Replication v.1.1.9

ClusterControl™ for MySQL Replication enables customers to Deploy, Manage, Monitor and Scale a clustered database platform based on the standard MySQL Replication.

Developers and DBAs now have access to all of the features of Severalnines' flagship product ClusterControl™ specifically adapted to MySQL Replication.
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Restaurant Scalability

Could pro-waitering serve up some lessons on web scalability? Observing peak hour dining at a New York restaurant gave us some insight.

I was dining at a restaurant the other day with friends. It was a warm and cozy place, nicely decorated with a long, narrow dining room.  The food was scrumptious, yet we were getting increasingly frustrated by the service as the night went along.

With some waiting experience behind me, I could immediately see the problem. The waiters, probably through lack of experience, were making the mistake of doing one thing at a time.  They would go to a table, respond to one customer's request, and go and fetch that item.  Back and forth, back and forth they would dart, but always dealing with …

Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Clustering

Oracle has announced support for running MySQL on Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC); with so many people developing and deploying MySQL on Windows, this offers a great option to add High Availability to MySQL deployments if you don’t want to go as far as deploying MySQL Cluster.

This post will give a brief overview of how to set things up but for all of the gory details a new white paper MySQL with Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Clustering is available – please give me any feedback. I will also be presenting on this at a …