North Texas MySQL Meeting -- now with pizza!

At the next North Texas MySQL Users Group meeting we will be featuring pizza, soft drinks and beer. We will also have TWO presenters. Do if you are planning to be in Dallas on December 7th, please drop by!

Sun Microsystems will host the next Dallas MySQL User Group Meeting

When: Monday, December 7, 2009 | 6:00 to 8:00 pm

Where: Sun Microsystems, 7th Floor, 16000 Dallas Tollway, Dallas, TX

Map: http://bit.ly/ZnYoS

Are you interested in learning more about MySQL's new server release cycle and how it impacts the MySQL roadmap? Or are you looking to get the latest update on storage engines or development and administration tools? Are you investigating data warehousing and analytic solutions?

Then come join the North Texas MySQL Users Group, Benjamin Wood, Senior MySQL Systems Engineer, and Kathy Guzman, Senior Account Manager, from MySQL and Robin Schumacher, VP Products/Calpont for an interactive discussion on these MySQL hot topics and more. Pizza, beer, and soda and the opportunity to connect with other local MySQL Users provided!

Agenda

* How MySQL's New Server Release Cycle works and what's next
* Storage Engine Update
* What's New with the MySQL Query Analyzer and MySQL Workbench
* Building High Performance Analytic Databases
* Q & A / Roundtable
* Beer/Soda/Pizza

Featured Speakers:

- Benjamin Wood is a Systems Engineer with the MySQL group of Sun Microsystems. He has spent the last 12 years working with database technologies, including 8 years as a production DBA.

- Robin Schumacher, VP Products/CalPont, will lead a discussion on building high performance analytic databases.

Learn more about thse North Texas MySQL Users Group »

Register now to reserve your spot! http://www.mysql.com//news-and-events/events/dallasmeetup.php

Oracle Express Edition first steps for MySQL DBAs

I have had a few MySQL DBAs ask about how to get started learning Oracle. I will admit that it has been on my to-do list for quite a while¹. It never hurts to know more than one database system and a great deal of DBA help wanted ads mention Oracle. Someone once said that you must make sure your capabilities exceed your limitations² and recently I have been feeling limited when others have started to talk about Oracle capabilities.

So what does it take for a MySQL DBA to get their hands on their own Oracle instance? I used my Ubuntu box to go to Oracle's web site to get the free Oracle XE software.

1. Download and feed to package manager


2. Add my account to dba group


3. As root, /etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure to set passwords and ports

I pointed my web browser to http://127.0.01/apex and got the page you see in image with this blog. Now I need to find my copy of Hands-On Oracle Database 10g Express Edition for Linux.

1. I also have a stack of DB-2 and SQL Servers books that were picked up at Half Price Books to read through. I am always looking for better ways to express database concepts for MySql exams. Writing up something similar to this entry for DB2 and SQL Server is also on the list.

2. This quote has attributed to Bruce Lee and several others. And it always gota groan from my kids when I used it on them.

Cardinality

Last night I was asked about index cardinality. One of the members of the North Texas MySQL Users Group was using phpMyadmin and noticed an element marked 'cardinality' and asked me what it meant. And I will admit I was stumped.

The manual says:

ANALYZE TABLE determines index cardinality (as displayed in the Cardinality column of SHOW INDEX output) by doing ten random dives to each of the index trees and updating index cardinality estimates accordingly. Because these are only estimates, repeated runs of ANALYZE TABLE may produce different numbers. This makes ANALYZE TABLE fast on InnoDB tables but not 100% accurate because it does not take all rows into account.

MySQL uses index cardinality estimates only in join optimization. If some join is not optimized in the right way, you can try using ANALYZE TABLE. In the few cases that ANALYZE TABLE does not produce values good enough for your particular tables, you can use FORCE INDEX with your queries to force the use of a particular index, or set the max_seeks_for_key system variable to ensure that MySQL prefers index lookups over table scans. See Section 5.1.3, “Server System Variables”, and Section B.5.6, “Optimizer-Related Issues”.

Clear, huh? Well not 100% for me so I went back to searching. Other finds on the net say that cardinality is a measure of how accurate an index is and that a UNIQUE index would have the highest cardinality. So the more unique the index entries are, the more higher the cardinality.

Which brings up another question: How often do you maintain your indexes? Whay clues tell you to do maintenance? Please share your recommendations!

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BTW we will have pizza at the next meeting of the North Texas Users Group, so see you December 7 at 7PM at the Sun offices, 16000 Dallas Tollway in suite 700!

List of MySQL Certified Candidates -- Update

The list of MySQL Certified Candidates will pass into history at the end of November. The data was moved into Sun's system last July and what remains on the MySQL certification list is not aging well.

The Sun Certmanager has most of the same features but does not let us pull records for display on a web page. You can still get verification of your credentials for a third part, such as a job interview or customer, but it now requires having an email sent to the third party with the information on how they can view the information.

We will live the old information up for the coming month for those of you who wish to double check your data in the Sun system.

On behalf of the MySQL Certification Team, both past and present, we have enjoyed watching the list expand over time. It was a very valuable tool with many uses but sadly it now goes into history. And thank you to all of you listed there.

Want to know how Yahoo does their capacity planning?

Every wonder how Google plans for growth? Well, if you are in the Dallas / Fort Worth area on Monday, November 2nd you can find out exactly how they do it!

Strategic MySQL Planning for Complexity & Growth (i.e. MySQL Scaling for Dummies) will be presented by Tommy Falgout at the North Texas MySQL Users Group Meeting

Sometimes a data driven website is a simple matter. Sometimes it only starts out that way. Membership records can grow from dozens to hundreds to thousands (or more). Performance or historic logs can grow astronomically. The ongoing need to coordinate different sets of data can lead to outrageously complex schema and duplicate data. How can you avoid those troubles? There are ways. Tommy Falgout will talk about designing your database for growth and performance before those challenges become bottlenecks on your website.

Reference:
http://dallasphp.org/html/Topics.htm?article_id=178

The next meeting of the North Texas MySQL Users group will be Monday, November 2nd at 7:00 PM (Daylight savings time change on Sunday the 1st).

Tommy Falgout is a Sr. Application Developer at Yahoo! He started his journey at Y! with a background in PHP & MySQL. Since then he has expanded his horizon by becoming a certified MySQL DBA, managing the Yahoo! Live Flash Video architecture, dabbling in Oracle, MSSQL, Java, Flash, Flex and the occasional Perl when noone's looking. He welcomes challenges, questions and not afraid to admit he owns a scooter. On the side, he is actively trying to get rid of 1000+ rubber duckies, left at his house from a prank, at duckiehunt.com.

The previously scheduled presentation will be on making good queries with JOINS, subqueries, and UNIONs will be moved to December. If you want to learn how to get your data from your database faster, more efficiently, and easier then this is the session for you.

We meet in the Sun offices, Suite 700, 16000 Dallas Tollway. All are welcome, beginners encouraged to attend!

Saying goodbye to the old certification lists, part 2

I did not mean to stir up a hornets nest!

I received a lot of feedback on the last blog entry on shutting down the old MySQL system and that included the lists of certified candidates. Yes, I know how valuable these lists are. But you might want to check this out ORACLE UNIVERSITY LAUNCHES CERTVIEW. I will see if I can get some details the next time we speak to the fine Oracle Certification folks.

The certification industry have started initiatives like the ITCC to allow you to have your certifications listed for viewing by a potential employers or the world at large. So do not worry that we are taking some draconian action and the knowledge of your accomplishments is being shoved into the great bit bucket in the sky. We just need a little time to transition from system to system (to system).

And feel free to ping us for updates at Certification@MySQL.com or by commenting below.

Saying goodbye to the list of Certified MySQL Users

The MySQL Certification: Listing of MySQL Certified Users has been a valuable resource for many years. I have a small stack of emails from people who were recruited for jobs after someone spotted their names on the lists. But the lists are going away.

The vast majority of MySQL Certification information is now part of Sun's certification system and has been since the end of July. Prometric exam results feed into that system and not the MySQL system. The lists of certified users pulls from the now out of date MySQL system. That means the data from the listings are not up to date. There is no easy way to cross-tie the information from Sun's systems into the MySQL web system. So please spread the word that the lists are going away, most likely by the end of the calendar year.