Colin Charles Agenda

We had the first MariaDB Berlin Meetup on Tuesday 12.04.2016 at the Wikimedia Berlin offices at 7pm. More or less there were over 54 people that attended the event, a mix of MariaDB Corporation employees and community members. We competed with the entertainment at the AWS Summit Berlin which was apparently about 400m away! Food and drink were enjoyed by all, and most importantly there were many, many lightning talks (minimum 5 minutes, maximum 10 minutes – most were about 6-7 minutes long).

The bonus of all of this? Lots and lots of slides for you to see. Grab them from the Google Drive folder MariaDB Berlin meetup April 2016.

1. Monty talked about improving the speed of connections to MariaDB Server, some work he’s just pushed fairly recently to the 10.2 tree.
2. Dipti spoke about MariaDB ColumnStore and it is now clear we’ll see some source/binary drop by the end of May 2016.
3. Sergei Petrunia and Vicentiu Ciorbaru spoke about the upcoming window functions that MariaDB Server 10.2.0 will see (yes, the alpha should be out real soon now).
4. Jan spoke about InnoDB in 10.2.
5. Lixun Peng spoke about a fairly interesting feature, the idea to flashback via mysqlbinlog and how you can have a “Time Machine”. I can’t wait for flashback/time machine to appear in 10.2. The demo for this is extremely good.
6. Kolbe spoke about data at rest encryption using the MariaDB Amazon AWS KMS plugin.
7. Sanja and Georg went up together to speak about 10.2 protocol enhancements as well as what you’ll see in Connector/C 3.0.
8. Wlad gave us a good rundown on authenticating with GSSAPI, something you will notice is also available in MariaDB Server 10.1’s later releases.
9. Johan Wikman gave us an introduction to MariaDB MaxScale, which started off the talks on MaxScale.
10. Markus talked about the readwritesplit plugin.
11. Massimiliano went into the Binlog server.
12. Martin didn’t use slides but gave us an amazing talk titled “Rival concepts of SQL Proxy”; it was very well given and I’ve encouraged him to write a blog post about it.
13. Community member Ben Kochie, an SRE at SoundCloud gave us a quick talk on Monitoring MySQL with Prometheus and how much they depend on the PERFORMANCE_SCHEMA.
14. Diego Dupin spoke a little about the MariaDB Java Connector, and the idea was to do a demo but the projector via HDMI seemed to be a bit wonky (this was also true of using my Mac; the VGA output however worked fine). So it was just a quick talk without any deck.

We ended with a quick Q&A session with Monty dominating it. Lots of interesting questions around why the name Maria, licensing thoughts, ensuring all the software we have are in distributions, etc. Some ended up going for pizza while others ended up in a hotel bar at the Crowne Plaza Potsdamer Platz — and the chatter went on till at least 11pm.

Thanks again to Georg Richter who found us the venue and also did a lot of the legwork with Wikimedia Foundation.

The problem with Twitter is that we talk about something and before you know it, people forget. (e.g. does WebScaleSQL have an async client library?) How many blog posts are there about Percona Live Santa Clara 2015? This time (2016), I’m going to endeavour to write more than to just tweet – I want to remember this stuff, and search archives (and also note the changes that happen in this ecosystem). And maybe you do too as well. So look forward to more blogs from Percona Live Data Performance Conference 2016. In the meantime, here’s tweets in chronological order from my Twitter search.

• crowd filling up the keynote room for #perconalive
• beginning shortly, we’ll see @peterzaitsev at #perconalive doing his keynote
• #perconalive has over 1,200 attendees – oracle has 20 folk, with 22 folk from facebook
• #perconalive is going to be in Amsterdam sept 21-22 2015 (not in London this year). And in 2015, April 18-21 2016!
• We have @PeterZaitsev on stage now at #perconalive
• 5 of the 5 top websites are powered by MySQL – an Oracle ad – alexa rankings? http://www.alexa.com/topsites #perconalive
• now we have Harrison Fisk on ployglot persistence at facebook #perconalive
• make it work / make it fast / make it efficient – the facebook hacker way #perconalive
• a lot of FB innovation goes into having large data sizes with short query time response #perconalive
• “small data” to facebook? 10’s of petabytes with <5ms response times. and yes, this all sits in mysql #perconalive
• messages eventually lands in hbase for long term storage for disk #perconalive they like it for LSM
• Harrison introduces @RocksDB to be fast for memory/flash/disk, and its also LSM based. Goto choice for 100’s of services @ FB #perconalive
• Facebook Newsfeed is pulled from RocksDB. 9 billion QPS at peak! #perconalive
• Presto works all in memory on a streaming basis, whereas Hive uses map/reduce. Queries are much faster in Presto #perconalive
• Scuba isn’t opensource – real time analysis tool to debug/understand whats going on @ FB. https://research.facebook.com/publications/456106467831449/scuba-diving-into-data-at-facebook/ … #perconalive
• InnoDB as a read-optimized store and RocksDB as a write-optimized store — so RocksDB as storage engine for MySQL #perconalive
• Presto + MySQL shards is something else FB is focused on – in production @ FB #perconalive
• loving the woz keynote @ #perconalive – wondering if like apple keynotes, we’ll see a “one more thing” after this ;)
• “i’m only a genius at one thing: that’s making people think i’m a genius” — steve wozniak #perconalive
• Happiness = Smiles – Frowns (H=S-F) & Happiness = Food, Fun, Friends (H=F³) Woz’s philosophy on being happy + having fun daily #perconalive
• .@Percona has acquired @Tokutek in a move that provides some consolidation in the MySQL database market and takes..
• MySQL Percona snaps up Tokutek to move onto MongoDB and NoSQL turf http://zd.net/1ct6PEI by @wolpe
• One more thing – congrats @percona @peterzaitsev #perconalive Percona has acquired Tokutek with storage engines for MySQL & MongoDB – @PeterZaitsev #perconalive
• Percona is now a player in the MongoDB space with TokuMX! #perconalive
• The tokumx mongodb logo is a mongoose… #perconalive Percona will continue to support TokuDB/TokuMX to customers + new investments in it
• @Percona “the company driving MySQL today” and “the brains behind MySQL”. New marketing angle? http://www.datanami.com/2015/04/14/mysql-leader-percona-takes-aim-at-mongodb/ …
• We have Steaphan Greene from @facebook talk about @WebScaleSQL at #perconalive
• what is @webscalesql? its a collaboration between Alibaba, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, and Twitter to hack on mysql #perconalive
• close collaboration with @mariadb @mysql @percona teams on @webscalesql. today? upstream 5.6.24 today #perconalive
• whats new in @WebScaleSQL ? asynchronous mysql client, with support from within HHVM, from FB & LinkedIn #perconalive
• smaller @webscalesql change (w/big difference) – lower innodb buffer pool memory footprint from FB & Google #perconalive
• reduce double-write mode while still preserving safety. query throttling, server side statement timeouts, threadpooling #perconalive
• logical readahead to make full table scans as much as 10x fast. @WebScaleSQL #perconalive
• whats coming to @WebScaleSQL – online innodb defragmentation, DocStore (JSON style document database using mysql) #perconalive
• MySQL & RocksDB coming to @WebScaleSQL thanks to facebook & @MariaDB #perconalive
• So, @webscalesql will skip 5.7 – they will backport interesting features into the 5.6 branch! #perconalive
• likely what will be next to @webscalesql ? will be mysql-5.8, but can’t push major changes upstream. so might not be an option #perconalive
• Why only minor changes from @WebScaleSQL to @MySQL upstream? #perconalive
• Only thing not solved with @webscalesql & upstream @mysql – the Contributor license agreement #perconalive
• All @WebScaleSQL features under Apache CCLA if oracle can accept it. Same with @MariaDB @percona #perconalive
• Steaphan Greene says tell Oracle you want @webscalesql features in @mysql. Pressure in public to use the Apache CLA! #perconalive
• We now have Patrik Sallner CEO from @MariaDB doing the #perconalive keynote ==> 1+1 > 2 (the power of collaboration)
• “contributors make mariadb” – patrik sallner #perconalive
• Patrik Sallner tells the story about the CONNECT storage engine and how the retired Olivier Bertrand writes it #perconalive
• Google contributes table/tablespace encryption to @MariaDB 10.1 #perconalive
• Patrik talks about the threadpool – how #MariaDB made it, #Percona improved it, and all benefit from opensource development #perconalive
• and now we have Tomas Ulin from @mysql @oracle for his #perconalive keynote
• 20 years of MySQL. 10 years of Oracle stewardship of InnoDB. 5 years of Oracle stewardship of @MySQL #perconalive
• Tomas Ulin on the @mysql 5.7 release candidate. It’s gonna be a great release. Congrats Team #MySQL #perconalive
• MySQL 5.7 has new optimizer hint frameworks. New cost based optimiser. Generated (virtual) columns. EXPLAIN for running thread #perconalive
• MySQL 5.7 comes with the query rewrite plugin (pre/post parse). Good for ORMs. “Eliminates many legacy use cases for proxies” #perconalive
• MySQL 5.7 – native JSON datatypes, built-in JSON functions, JSON comparator, indexing of documents using generated columns #perconalive
• InnoDB has native full-text search including full CJK support. Does anyone know how FTS compares to MyISAM in speed? #perconalive
• MySQL 5.7 group replication is unlikely to make it into 5.7 GA. Designed as a plugin #perconalive
• Robert Hodges believes more enterprises will use MySQL thanks to the encryption features (great news for @mariadb) #perconalive
• Domas on FB Messenger powered by MySQL. Goals: response time, reliability, and consistency for mobile messaging #perconalive
• FB Messenger: Iris (in-memory pub-sub service – like a queue with cache semantics). And MySQL as persistence layer #perconalive
• FB focuses on tiered storage: minutes (in memory), days (flash) and longterm (on disks). #perconalive
• Gotta keep I/O devices for 4-5 years, so don’t waste endurance capacity of device (so you don’t write as fast as a benchmark) #perconalive
• Why MySQL+InnoDB? B-Tree: cheap overwrites, I/O has high perf on flash, its also quick and proven @ FB #perconalive
• What did FB face as issues to address with MySQL? Write throughput. Asynchronous replication. and Failover time. #perconalive
• HA at Facebook: <30s failover, <1s switchover, > 99.999% query success rate
• Learning a lot about LSM databases at Facebook from Yoshinori Matsunobu – check out @rocksdb + MyRocks https://github.com/MySQLOnRocksDB/mysql-5.6 …
• The #mysqlawards 2015 winners #PerconaLive
• Percona has a Customer Advisory Board now – Rob Young #perconalive
• craigslist: mysql for active, mongodb for archives. online alter took long. that’s why @mariadb has https://mariadb.com/kb/en/mariadb/progress-reporting/ … #perconalive
• can’t quite believe @percona is using db-engines rankings in a keynote… le sigh #perconalive
• “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower” – Steve Jobs #perconalive
• Percona TokuDB: “only alternative to MySQL + InnoDB” #perconalive
• “Now that we have the rights to TokuDB, we can add all the cool features ontop of Percona XtraDB Cluster (PXC)” – Rob Young #perconalive
• New Percona Cloud Tools. Try it out. Helps remote DBA/support too. Wonder what the folk at VividCortex are thinking about now #perconalive
• So @MariaDB isn’t production ready FOSS? I guess 3/6 top sites on Alexa rank must disagree #perconalive
• Enjoying Encrypting MySQL data at Google by @jeremycole & Jonas — you can try this in @mariadb 10.1.4 https://mariadb.com/kb/en/mariadb/mariadb-1014-release-notes/ … #perconalive
• google encryption: mariadb uses the api to have a plugin to store the keys locally; but you really need a key management server #perconalive
• Google encryption: temporary tables during query execution for the Aria storage engine in #MariaDB #perconalive
• find out more about google mysql encryption — https://code.google.com/p/google-mysql/ or just use it at 10.1.4! https://downloads.mariadb.org/mariadb/10.1.4/ #perconalive
• Encrypting MySQL data at Google – Percona Live 2015 #perconalive http://wp.me/p5WPkh-5F
• The @WebScaleSQL goals are still just to provide access to the code, as opposed to supporting it or making releases #perconalive
• There is a reason DocStore & Oracle/MySQL JSON 5.7 – they were designed together. But @WebScaleSQL goes forward with DocStore #perconalive
• So @WebScaleSQL will skip 5.7, and backport things like live resize of the InnoDB buffer pool #perconalive
• How to view @WebScaleSQL? Default GitHub branch is the active one. Ignore -clean branches, just reference for rebase #perconalive
• All info you need should be in the commit messages @WebScaleSQL #perconalive
• Phabricator is what @WebScaleSQL uses as a code review system. All diffs are public, anyone can follow reviews #perconalive
• automated testing with jenkins/phabricator for @WebScaleSQL – run mtr on ever commit, proposed diffs, & every night #perconalive
• There is feature documentation, and its a work in progress for @WebScaleSQL. Tells you where its included, etc. #perconalive
• Checked out the new ANALYZE statement feature in #MariaDB to analyze JOINs? Sergei Petrunia tells all #perconalive https://mariadb.com/kb/en/mariadb/analyze-statement/ …

There are a few upcoming speaking gigs this March 2016:

• flossUK Spring Conference – 15-17 March 2016, London
• FOSSASIA – 18-20 March 2016, Singapore

Two talks in London and one keynote in Singapore, while I will also moderate the database track on the last day of the conference as well. I’ve never been to flossUK before, but the schedule looks very interesting and I’m looking forward to it. FOSSASIA is an event I’ve been going to regularly since it was held in varying places (Vietnam, Cambodia, before finally settling down in Singapore) so this is an always exciting time.

Would happily meet you to talk shop, feel free to drop me an email: colin[at]mariadb.com.

I think one of the big announcements that came out from the Amazon Web Services world in October 2015 was the fact that you could spin up instances of MariaDB Server on it. You would get MariaDB Server 10.0.17. As of this writing, you are still getting that (the MySQL shipping then was 5.6.23, and today you can create a 5.6.27 instance, but there were no .24/.25/.26 releases). I’m hoping that there’s active work going on to make MariaDB Server 10.1 available ASAP on the platform.

Just last week you would have noticed that Amazon has rolled out MySQL 5.7.10. The in-place upgrades are not available yet, so updating is via dump/reload or using read replicas. According to the forums, a lot of people have been wanting to use the JSON functionality.

Are you trying MySQL 5.7 on RDS? How about your usage of MariaDB Server 10.0 on RDS? I’d be interested in feedback either as a comment here, or via email.

SCALE14x was held at Pasadena, Los Angeles this year from January 21-24 2016. I think its important to note that the venue changed from the Hilton LAX — this is a much bigger space, as the event is much bigger, and you’ll also notice that the expo hall has grown tremendously.

I had a talk in the MySQL track, and that was just one of over 180 talks. There were over 3,600 people attending, and it showed by the number of people coming by the MariaDB Corporation booth. I spent sometime there with Rod Allen, Max Mether, and Kurt Pastore, and the qualified leads we received were pretty high. Of course it didn’t hurt that we were also giving away a Sphero BB-8 Droid.

The MySQL track room was generally always full. We learned some interesting tidbits like Percona Server 5.7 would be GA in February 2016 (true!), the strong crowd at the MariaDB booth and quite a bit more. People are definitely interested in MySQL 5.7’s JSON functionality.

The highlight of my talk, The MySQL Server Ecosystem in 2016 was that it brought along quite a good discussion on Twitter. Its clear people are very interested in this and there is much opportunity for writing about this!

The Mark Shuttleworth keynote

But there were other SCALE14x highlights, like the keynote by Mark Shuttleworth. It was generally a very moving keynote, and here are a few bits that I took as notes:

• Technology changes lives
• Society evolves because it becomes possible to live differently
• New software moves too fast for distributions (6 months is too long). Look at Github. Speed vs. integration/trust/maintenance (the work of a distro)
• snapcraft 2.0 (learn more about your first snap): reduce the amount of work to package software. Install software together transactionally.

An overview of a next-gen filesystem

Another talk I found interesting was the talk about bitrot, and filesystems like btrfs and ZFS. Best to read the presentation, and the article that was referenced.

Scaling GlusterFS at Facebook

A talk by Facebook is usually quite full, and I was interested in how they were using GlusterFS and if anyone has managed to successfully run a database over it yet (no). This was a talk given by Richard Wareing who’s been at Facebook for over 5 years:

• GB’s to many PBs, 100’s of millions of files. QPS (FOPs) is 10s of billions per day, namespace (volume), TBs to PBs and Bricks: 1000’s. Version 3.3.x is when they started and now they use 3.6.x (trail mainline closely)
• Use cases: archival, backing data store for large scale applications, anything that doesn’t fit into other DBs
• RAID6, controller is enterprise grade, storage is more consumer grade
• Primarily using XFS, and are starting to use btrfs (about 20% of the fleet run on it)
• closed source AntFarm, JD, and their IPv6 support (they removed IPv4 support). They have JSON Statistic dumps which they contributed upstream.
• a good mantra, pragmatism over correctness

Some expo hall chatter

There was plenty to followup post-SCALE14x with many having questions about MariaDB Server, or wanting to buy services around it from MariaDB Corporation. I learned for example that Rackspace maintains their own IUS repository of packages they think their customers will find important to use. The idea behind it is that its Inline with Upstream Stable. Naturally you will find MariaDB Server as well as packages for all the engines like CONNECT.

I also learned that Stacki uses MariaDB Server for provisioning, as was evidenced by their github issue.

Its incredibly rewarding to note that pretty much everyone knew what MariaDB Server was. Its been a long journey (six years!) but it sure feels sweet. Ilan and his team put on a great SCALE so I can’t wait to be back again next year.

Apparently I’ve always thought that donating to opensource software that you use would be a good idea – I found this about Firefox add-ons. I suggested that the MariaDB Foundation do this for downloads to the MariaDB Server, and it looks like most people seem to think that it is an OK thing to do.

I see it being done with Ubuntu, LibreOffice, and more recently: elementary OS. The reasoning seems sound, though there was some controversy before they changed the language of the post. Though I’m not sure that I’d force the $0 figure. 

For something like MariaDB Server, this is mostly going to probably hit Microsoft Windows users; Linux users have repositories configured or use it from their distribution of choice!