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The MySQL Track at Kaleidoscope is set!

The MySQL track at Kaleidoscope in Washington, DC during June 28-July 1st is set! Here is the schedule, Lincoln VI is the MySQL track room.
Ronald has done a super job and spent a ton of hours in the past several weeks coordinating this effort. Work has kept me much busier than normal, but I have lent some time to the coordination as well. It is a credit mostly to Ronald that we have been able to plan an entire 19-session conference track, complete with confirming speakers, in less than a month. (You may notice the schedule does not have all 19 sessions full, we are just waiting for some more speakers to confirm details.)

A Useful Tool to Centrally Manage Many MySQL Instances

I have been talking with a group of folks who have been making a product that has lots of free functionality, including the ability to centrally manage many MySQL instances. The administration functions include starting and stopping MySQL, seeing status and system variables, seeing and managing the MySQL config file (/etc/my.cnf), seeing and managing accounts, a small dashboard of overall health graphs, and more.
With this free tool you can look at and manage local and remote databases. It supports ssh tunneling, including ssh using password-protected ssh keys. It’s pretty neat, and I have been working with the product manager to add features. I think this took will become the de facto standard for centralized GUI administration of MySQL.

A Useful Tool to Centrally Manage Many MySQL Instances

I have been talking with a group of folks who have been making a product that has lots of free functionality, including the ability to centrally manage many MySQL instances. The administration functions include starting and stopping MySQL, seeing status and system variables, seeing and managing the MySQL config file (/etc/my.cnf), seeing and managing accounts, a small dashboard of overall health graphs, and more.
With this free tool you can look at and manage local and remote databases. It supports ssh tunneling, including ssh using password-protected ssh keys. It’s pretty neat, and I have been working with the product manager to add features. I think this took will become the de facto standard for centralized GUI administration of MySQL.

An SSH tool to make your life easier

A MySQL user group member saw that I use Poderosa as my ssh-on-Windows tool, and asked why I did not use PuTTY. My response was that I like having tabbed windows and hate having to keep opening another PuTTY program every time I want to open another connection. With Poderosa I can open a new connection with Alt-N, and I can even connect directly to Cygwin with an icon.
But Poderosa is not the tool I wanted to mention….Another user group member mentioned PuTTY Connection Manager. It wraps around PuTTY and gets the existing saved connections, makes a nicely tabbed browsing window where you can open sessions by double-clicking the connections, which are now listed on the right-hand side.

An SSH tool to make your life easier

A MySQL user group member saw that I use Poderosa as my ssh-on-Windows tool, and asked why I did not use PuTTY. My response was that I like having tabbed windows and hate having to keep opening another PuTTY program every time I want to open another connection. With Poderosa I can open a new connection with Alt-N, and I can even connect directly to Cygwin with an icon.
But Poderosa is not the tool I wanted to mention….Another user group member mentioned PuTTY Connection Manager. It wraps around PuTTY and gets the existing saved connections, makes a nicely tabbed browsing window where you can open sessions by double-clicking the connections, which are now listed on the right-hand side.

An SSH tool to make your life easier

A MySQL user group member saw that I use Poderosa as my ssh-on-Windows tool, and asked why I did not use PuTTY. My response was that I like having tabbed windows and hate having to keep opening another PuTTY program every time I want to open another connection. With Poderosa I can open a new connection with Alt-N, and I can even connect directly to Cygwin with an icon.
But Poderosa is not the tool I wanted to mention….Another user group member mentioned PuTTY Connection Manager. It wraps around PuTTY and gets the existing saved connections, makes a nicely tabbed browsing window where you can open sessions by double-clicking the connections, which are now listed on the right-hand side.

An SSH tool to make your life easier

A MySQL user group member saw that I use Poderosa as my ssh-on-Windows tool, and asked why I did not use PuTTY. My response was that I like having tabbed windows and hate having to keep opening another PuTTY program every time I want to open another connection. With Poderosa I can open a new connection with Alt-N, and I can even connect directly to Cygwin with an icon.
But Poderosa is not the tool I wanted to mention….Another user group member mentioned PuTTY Connection Manager. It wraps around PuTTY and gets the existing saved connections, makes a nicely tabbed browsing window where you can open sessions by double-clicking the connections, which are now listed on the right-hand side.

sort_buffer_size and Knowing Why

In How to tune MySQL’s sort_buffer_size, Baron gives a condescending viewpoint on how to tune the sort_buffer_size variable in MySQL. In a much-nicer-nutshell, his advice is “do not change sort_buffer_size from the default.”
Baron did not explain the logic behind his reasoning, he handwaves that “people utterly ruin their server performance and stability with it,” but does not explain how changing the sort_buffer_size kills performance and stability. Regardless of how respected and knowledgeable the source, NEVER take any advice that tells you what to do or how to do it without understanding WHY.

sort_buffer_size and Knowing Why

In How to tune MySQL’s sort_buffer_size, Baron gives a condescending viewpoint on how to tune the sort_buffer_size variable in MySQL. In a much-nicer-nutshell, his advice is “do not change sort_buffer_size from the default.”
Baron did not explain the logic behind his reasoning, he handwaves that “people utterly ruin their server performance and stability with it,” but does not explain how changing the sort_buffer_size kills performance and stability. Regardless of how respected and knowledgeable the source, NEVER take any advice that tells you what to do or how to do it without understanding WHY.

The Doom of XtraDB and Percona Server?

In The Doom of Multiple Storage Engines, Peter talks about how the storage engine concept of MySQL is usually spoken of in positive terms, but there are many negatives.
I have a hard time trying to figure out the deeper meaning behind Peter’s post, given that Percona writes a storage engine for MySQL, XtraDB. Does this mean that Percona will stop developing XtraDB? Does this mean that the Percona Server will diverge farther and farther away from MySQL so that they’re not compatible any more and migrating from MySQL to Percona Server is very difficult?