Diamond Notes

For those who don’t know I started a dial-up  Internet Service Provider in Pensacola, Florida in January of 1998.  I began using RedHat Linux (5.0 or 5.1…can’t remember) a couple of months later.  In addition to RedHat I began using a little database server called MySQL.  It was version 3.21.  Not that I really remember, but I looked up the release date one time :).  Before this, for a period of two and a half years, I was a SQL programmer and an Oracle DBA.

Why the history lesson?  Not because you wanted to know all that.  And I am not bragging.  I wish I could say that I used MySQL on a daily basis ever since.  Not the case.  I worked as a systems admin for a long time after that.  While there where times I used MySQL as part of my job, it wasn’t the focus of my work.

However, longevity tends to give perspective.  And I have worked with and watched MySQL for quite some time.  Back when it was version 3.x most people honestly thought of it as a toy.  There were so many missing features.  And it wasn’t bullet-proof.  Some might have said it was bullet ridden :)  Version 4.x brought Innodb and some much needed stability.  It wasn’t until version 5.X that there were views, triggers, stored procedures and such.  Another important addition was the clustering functionality brought by the new NDB storage engine.  By then, “old school” corporations were beginning to use it.  That really brings us up to now.

Where do we go from here?  Version six is set to bring us a new round of improvements.  I understand online backups are in store (no pun intended).  Falcon as a new storage engine is definitely in order.  Optimizer updates will continue.  There is no real roadmaps at this point beyond version 6.0.

I want to rub the crystal  ball a bit.  See what the next ten years might bring.  The last ten years since brought major versions four, five and (alpha) of six.  Maybe the next ten years will bring six, seven and eight.  I hope to be around discussing these changes and where they bring us.  Maybe large scale clustering more along the lines of Oracle RAC? Parallel query processing using multiple processors as I discussed in a recent post (http://www.paragon-cs.com/wordpress/?p=83)

I could not imagine ten years ago where MySQL is now.  Today I would be foolish if I thought that I have more than a semi-educated guess at what is coming.  Time will tell.  I do know that MySQL will contine to grow, reach new markets and win over converts.