Colin Charles Agenda

Good news, MySQL 5.1.26-rc has been released. From the release notes: “MySQL 5.1.26-rc is slated to be the last release candidate before we declare MySQL 5.1 as “production ready” (GA).”

If I were you, I’d start testing it out in environments that you’re planning to run MySQL in, or upgrade to 5.1 in. Feedback and testing to iron out issues, is important, so if you find a bug that affects you, report it!

In other news, on the Sun Developer Network (SDN) site, there’s a couple of resources such as the Python Developer Center and the Ruby Developer Center. At MySQL, we’ve got the DevZone, focusing on languages such as Ruby and Python, with MySQL use. However, the resources can definitely be improved upon, and maybe there should be more synergy with SDN, if its getting more eyeballs than the DevZone. Thoughts on how to improve resources for developers? Please leave a comment

If you’ve not read Beyond LAMP, don’t hesitate to take a look-see. I learnt that there are a whole bucket-load of Web/App Servers out there.

In addition to having the Malaysia University Days, there’s something brewing in Singapore too.

First up, there is the Singapore MySQL Meetup Group, having a meeting in July, at a new location (Sun Solutions Centre, Central Mall). Confirm your attendance for a meetup at 7pm on Monday, July 14 2008.

And the other reason to be in Singapore, is the Sun Developer Days 2008 Singapore, happening on Tuesday, July 15, 2008. This is an all-day long event, held at the Hilton Hotel – register now! The agenda is packed, and there is a big web focus: profile applications using the NetBeans IDE, MySQL, and using DTrace on Web applications (from JavaScript to the database).

So there, two events next week, in Singapore: MySQL Meetup and Sun Developer Days. See you there.

Here’s a packed schedule. There will be a Sun crew visiting these universities between 16-17 July 2008. Will you be there? Where you’ll meet the rock stars:

• Wednesday, 16 July 2008, 9am – noon: Multimedia University, Cyberjaya
• Wednesday, 16 July 2008, 2pm – 5pm: Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam
• Thursday, 17 July 2008, 9am – noon: Management & Science University, Shah Alam
• Thursday, 17 July 2008, 2pm – 5pm: INTI, Subang

And what exactly will we be talking about? Besides the keynote, and tech demos, there will be focus on NetBeans (a fabulous IDE), an introduction to OpenSolaris, JavaFX, and of course, MySQL.

We all have 30 minute session slots, and the focus is rather developer centric, so I’m wondering what is best to cover in 30 minutes (what one can probably talk about in 5 days even)? Condensed talk on storage engines, index types, etc. ?

My fear is that I’ll largely be talking to a crowd that has seen and used a database, and its called Access. MySQL will be new to them. Not having a “front-end” per se, ala Access, might be scary. Then again, hooking up OpenOffice.org Base and Workbench might be the way to go for a glitzy presentation…

I caught Facebook – Needle in a Haystack: Efficient Storage of Billions of Photos on Flowgram. First up, I’m not a big fan of Flowgrams – the format is sensible, slide and voice, is excellent, but the delivery in a web browser isn’t optimal… make downloadable videos!

The talk however, was excellent. Do watch it, and learn a bit more about Facebook’s infrastructure. Anyway, some notes I took from the talk:

• “We’re one of the largest MySQL installations in the world”
• Use memcache – “We have memcache because databases aren’t fast” (later on in the questions)
• Separate team focusing on APE (Apache, PHP and Extensions that they work on)
• 6.5 billion total images, 4-5 sizes stored for each, so 30 billion files, of about 540TB total… During peak? 475,000 images served per second, and growing by 100 million uploads per week
• Images are usually pulled from a Content Delivery Network (CDN), so it reduces the request rate on their servers
• They use NetApp Storage, but basically their upload servers speak NFS to write to NetApp.
• Cachr (evhttp based) and File Handle Cache use memcache as a backing store… FHC is based on lighttpd!
• Makes use of a “haystack” – user-level abstraction, storing a separate index file that has more efficient metadata (to reduce disk seeks – 1 disk seek or less for any workload). Pretty deep in the discussion of the haystack server architecture, also evhttp-based
• MySQL use? Very few transactions, very few joins
• Video is a very different beast, and the design is a little different

If you’re into information about photo storage sites, don’t hesitate to also read my previous notes on Flickr.

Its the Firefox Download Day. That not only means Firefox 3 is out, it also means that they’re trying to set a world record, by getting the most downloads of a software package in 24-hours. There’s a nice world map, similar to the kind you might have seen in presentations by Jonathan Schwartz (ok, I prefer seeing the dots per region, rather than the Firefox one :P).

The pending general availability of MySQL 5.1 was announced in April at the MySQL Conference. While I’ve seen 1,400+ attendees (a pleasant problem for the event organisers, as they scurried to get people into overflow rooms, and herd the crowd during food times) show up at the Tech Days in the Philippines, I’m wondering if we can achieve 3 million downloads (the current Firefox counter) within 24-hours? Database software just isn’t as sexy as a web browser… Thats not to say we cannot aim high.

How would you celebrate the release of MySQL 5.1 GA? Worldwide release parties (ala Ubuntu)? Set an aim for “n-number of downloads” in 24-hours?

P/S: Like live stats? Look at the Mozilla Download Counter. Its live, and very cool

I’m at the Sun Tech Days in beautiful Philippines, and all I can say is the energy is tremendous. I’m hearing there are about 1,400 attendees, and this number might grow tomorrow.

Armed with a video camera, I decided to take a few video snapshots. My first victimguest on my yet to be named videocast is Wen Huang, Product Manager for NetBeans, at Sun Microsystems.

Wen Huang has been a MySQL user since 1999, and had a past life as a web developer in various web shops, some large, some small. One commonality he had at all his jobs though is that they always use MySQL.

He’s an action junkie, preferring to have the latest version of the MySQL database all the time, and can’t wait for MySQL 5.1 when it comes out. Do remember that there exists a NetBeans with Glassfish and MySQL bundle. I’ve also blogged about this before, don’t hesitate to read my review titled NetBeans 6.1 with GlassFish, MySQL bundle.

So there you have it. Go forth, and try the great bundle, as its an all-in-one install of an IDE, an application server, and a database server.