Diamond Notes

So Lukas Smith just wrote about the developers conference from last week. Some information came out of including the following:

• Replication allows different schema on the master and slave. Data type mismatches cause automatic type casts and you can have additional column on the master or on the slave (but this might give you problems when you are using row based replication without a primary key - so just use a primary key :-)). Multi threaded writer support on the slave is likely to be added in December (not sure when it will get into a GA release)
• Online backup is coming in MySQL 5.2 (or whatever is coming after 5.1)
• MySQL Proxy allows you to extend SQL, by intercepting whatever string you are sending to the server and turning it into proper SQL. The proxy can operate on the data going to the server as well as the data coming back. You can load only one script at a time and only at start up, however there are solutions to load and/or chain scripts via LUA scripts

These are all really cool. The proxy information is not big news as it has been generating excitement for quite some time. I see it firmly entrenched into the server architecture very soon and I think for the most part this is a good thing. I think MySQL AB must read my blog..just a few days ago I wrote this blog entry. Although the mysqlpdump tool is better than the “stock” mysqldump I have been praying for an online backup tool integrated into the server. It looks like it might be coming. So, as I said, “Yeah MySQL AB!!”.

The replication information is exciting also. Stable, solid replication is a necessary part of any production environment. Speeding it up with multiple slave write threads will help with lag issues.

All in all, I have to say I am starting to look forward to the “5.2″ branch (or whatever it will be called).