September's results

MySQL Certification had another great month in September. It was our biggest month with a MySQL Users Conference (where the cost of each exam is deeply discounted). A total of 159 exams were taken and that is a 10 percent increase.

Total certifications earned was another non-UC record with 68. That was made up of 14 Developers, 27 DBAs, 7 Cluster DBAs, and 20 Associates. Congratulations to all those who worked so hard to earn these certifications.

Those of you wishing to take the exams in Japanese should keeping checking the website for a new, much improved translation that will be ready by the Japanese UC. Domo arigato, Toru-san!

And be sure to list your MySQL Certifications on your resumes and social networking pages. I had a long talk with an online recruiting company about the best way to find certified MySQL Developers and DBAa. The demand for individuals is there but writing the filters to sweep their data warehouses is tricky (I did that in a previous job). These recruiters are being slammed for requests as more compnaies use MySQL.

So make sure you spell MySQL as 'MySQL' and list you certification spelled out and with the initials (CMDEV, DMDBA, CMCDBA, CMA, Core, or Professional) to help them find you!

MySQL Training

Last week I had the great opportunity to sit in on a DBA class session taught by George Trujillo. I know that most of the folks administrating and programming MySQL databases are self taught. Learning by the 'RFTM' has benefits but many lessons come directly from the education institution know as The School of Hard Knocks. And some knocks are much harder and larger than other.

Self-teaching is a valuable way to learn but a lot depends on the quality of the materials you can discover. The MySQL DBA class is well structured so that concepts are presented in easy to understand portions and build on each other to cover the information. It really beats trying to read the online documentation at three in the morning.

I was shocked and somewhat jealous that in a few minutes the lucky students in the Dallas class were carefully guided by George on the subject MySQL grants and privileges. My early DBA work was always in 'get it working and worry about how it works later' mode. This often left me struggling at odd hours trying to figure out why X worked for A but not for B, usually with B breathing over my shoulder and griping about a deadline. Learning the hard way is just that -- hard. The information that George so easily communicated to the class would have saved me hours.

The class manual is a thick book filled with information, drills, and best practices. Combined with George's dynamic teaching style, the lucky students were receiving a big boost in become better DBAs. Believe me, this beats getting X working for B late at night while B doubts your ability and parentage.

George introduced me to the class and had a small break to allow the students to ask questions about MySQL Certification. From the quality of their questions, it was obvious that this DBA class was giving them the skills and knowledge they would need to be very good MySQL DBAs.

So check out the MySQL Training pages and see if there is a class near you. The classes are carefully crafted and well taught. The time and money spent on these classes will pay dividends later hen you do not have to flounder around looking for the correct man page or blog entry.

DBA Exams and Optimize/Analyze

The MySQL optimize and analyze commands must be pretty confusing if judged by the CMDBA (Certified MySQL Database Administrator) exams. Hopefully this is because MySQL works wonderfully 'out of the box' and does not need a great deal of maintenance. I am looking at the questions on the exams where candidates are not performing as expected and optimize/analyze is a stumbling point.

There are several table maintenance operations that you need to know about to keep your database healthy. Failure to keep your database healthy can slow down queries and do other nasty things to your quality of life.

CHECK TABLE performs an integrity check on the structure and content of your tables. For MyISAM tables, it will also update the index statistics. If problems appear, proceed to ...

REPAIR TABLE is for MyISAM tables only and will correct corrupted tables. InnoDB tables should be dumped with mysqldump and restored.

ANALYZE TABLE updates a table's information about keys for queries so that the data can be found faster and not having to hunt for it. This works for both MyISAM and InnoDB.

OPTIMIZE TABLE defragments MyISAM tables, sorts indexes, and updates the statistics to speed up searches.

Automatic MyISAM repair can be enabled with the --myisam-recover option, either at startup or in a configuration file. You can direct the server to make a backup of any table before it changes, force recovery, or skip tables when then have no gaps from deletes or updates.

InnoDB will try to fix any repairs at startup as part of normal operations. But it is best to read the documentation on --innodb_force_recovery before you need to use it under pressure.

Please read the documentation on these commands and make sure you understand any locking issues before using them. With careful application, these commands can keep your data healthy.