Today, Giuseppe Maxia gave a presentation on MySQL Sandbox. This was our second MySQL University session using the new conferencing system, Dimdim.

Most attendees arrived in time, but like with any real-life university, some arrived late, and some left during the session. We had an average of 16-17 attendees, and a peak of 19.

Giuseppe presented using a slide set, rather than using the desktop sharing facility that Dimdim offers. Clicking through slides feels real-time, while desktop sharing requires some time for changes to arrive on the receiving end (as we've experienced with the previous session). Also, clicking through slides requires virtually no bandwidth (after the slide set has been uploaded to Dimdim). Giuseppe's voice came over loud and clear. A few attendees reported …

Recently, I came across this short video clip by Nick Kloski where he briefly describes the advantages of running MySQL on Sun Servers (Linux, Windows, and Solaris) and details some of the best server options for MySQL and when they should be used.  There's also some details on how you can try the systems out before buying them.  Check it out here.

 If you would like more specifics than the above video, then there are some examples of customers deploying MySQL in Containers and / or LDoms on Sun systems at:

http://www.sun.com/systems/solutions/mysql/ecoscale/perspectives.jsp

Additionally, here a a few references to blogs from my colleagues that post specific details on tests that they have done.

or timebound ? or don't you have any load on your DB at all ?

I personally don't see many reasons to virtualize your database, apart from the , we plan to start small and scale out, or the we need it now and we don't have the hardware yet , putting your database on a virtual platform where you have to share resources with other virtual machines doesn't really sound like a tempting proposition to me. Small, almost idle databases , maybe. But enterprise production level databases no thnx.

Sheeri Cabral also mentions the above reasons .. and there also .. Enterprise Production use isn't listed.

Databases typically require a good amount of memory , and steady disk access.
So if you are in a production environment with a fairly loaded database, would you want a 4Gb machine with full direct memory access, Or 3.5Gb of virtual …

Don MacAskill at SmugMug updated his blog a while back on ZFS and MySQL to include information on compression.  From his tests, he found that LZJB was a better choice than gzip -- performance improved while still leaving room on the CPU.  This was using InnoDB tables. 

See the full details here.

There are many virtualization options available to MySQL users.  One of these is the baremetal hypervisor, which is installed directly on the hardware and eliminates the need for a primary operating system.  Baremetal hypervisors are extremely flexible in that multiple operating systems can be supported on one system while increasing overall server utilization since multiple environments can run on one system.  Additionally, most enterprises see more flexibility over their environment and resources, higher levels of availability and security, increased efficiency, ease of migration, improved manageability, and a total lower cost of ownership.   Sun xVM Server falls under the baremetal hypervisor category.  My colleagues in Israel, Adina and Orgad, are helping us determine the best practices for running MySQL within xVM Server. 

For those of you who don't know much about Sun xVM Server, it is a …

Have you looked at virtualization for your MySQL environments yet?  If so, I'd like to hear about it-- what technology are you using, what benefits have you seen due to virtualization, and have you encountered any downsides or limitations?  For those who haven't explored virtualization, why not?  Once again, I'd like to here about?

SmugMug , a photos and videos publishing site, goes into Production on Open Solaris + MySQL + ZFS. Check out this story on why a Linux geek decided to move his site from Linux To Open Solaris.

Don MacAskill, chief geek and CEO of SmugMug says"  ZFS is the most amazing filesystem I’ve ever come across. Integrated volume management. Copy-on-write. Transactional. End-to-end data integrity. On-the-fly corruption detection and repair. Robust checksums. No RAID-5 write hole. Snapshots. Clones (writable snapshots). Dynamic striping. Open source software. " He is also excited about the CoolStack 5.1 stack available in Open Solaris along with …

The next MySQL University session will take place this Thursday, 30th October. Giuseppe Maxia will get you up to speed with using MySQL Sandbox for quick and easy testing of MySQL.

This session will start at 15:00 Central European Time (14:00 UTC, 14:00 BST).

MySQL University is an educational program run virtually on the 'net. Sessions are open to anyone. MySQL University focuses on MySQL internals and on Sun technology that can be used in connection with MySQL, but we're open to hear your suggestions for other topics. Go to this page and fill in your suggestions!

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SmugMug , a photos and videos publishing site, goes into Production on Open Solaris + MySQL + ZFS. Check out this story on why a Linux geek decided to move his site from Linux To Open Solaris.

Don MacAskill, chief geek and CEO of SmugMug says"  ZFS is the most amazing filesystem I’ve ever come across. Integrated volume management. Copy-on-write. Transactional. End-to-end data integrity. On-the-fly corruption detection and repair. Robust checksums. No RAID-5 write hole. Snapshots. Clones (writable snapshots). Dynamic striping. Open source software. " He is also excited about the CoolStack 5.1 stack available in Open Solaris along with …

SmugMug , a photos and videos publishing site, goes into Production on Open Solaris + MySQL + ZFS. Check out this story on why a Linux geek decided to move his site from Linux To Open Solaris.

Don MacAskill, chief geek and CEO of SmugMug says"  ZFS is the most amazing filesystem I’ve ever come across. Integrated volume management. Copy-on-write. Transactional. End-to-end data integrity. On-the-fly corruption detection and repair. Robust checksums. No RAID-5 write hole. Snapshots. Clones (writable snapshots). Dynamic striping. Open source software. " He is also excited about the CoolStack 5.1 stack available in Open Solaris along with …