Diamond Notes

The Gossip Corner

2008-05-19T14:52:29Z

I have been following the ZFS saga for quite a while. I have been hoping that somehow Sun could release ZFS under a compatible license for Linux. Well, there is hope yet. While it might be a slim hope, take a look at this:

http://practical-tech.com/operating-system/linux-and-sun-partnering/

Here’s hoping!! Debian with ZFS running MySQL … hmmmmmmmm. Can I have one for Christmas?

Last Chance for Survey Input

2008-05-18T23:56:30Z

On May the 26th, with the help of Mark Schoonover, MySQL Magazine is putting online a survey for people who use MySQL on a daily basis as part of their job. This survey will be open for three weeks and then I will gather the results and publish them in the Summer issue of MySQL Magazine which will be online July the 15th.

Now is the time to put in your suggestions so they can be incorporated into the survey. Don’t be shy!

Rotating Slow and General Query Logs

2008-05-14T20:43:36Z

I had a need to enable general query logging on a slave yesterday. This makes for a very big file. So, I needed to rotate this file at least daily. Enter Google :) And thanks to Jim Wood and Matt Reid, I have what I need. Now I have it cron’ed to rotate out every night. So thanks guys!! And here is a link to the post Matt wrote about it:

http://themattreid.com/wordpress/?p=34

MySQL Daemon Goes Belly Up — But We Know Why!!

2008-05-07T23:28:22Z

We have been running MySQL server 5.0.45 in production here since December. Not a hitch until April the 4th. Then, while I was on vacation of course, one of our masters servers seg-faulted and died. I looked into things, but really couldn’t tell much. The one odd thing was that I had MyISAM tables marked crashed in the error log BEFORE the actual crash. While I thought that was very odd, I didn’t put two and two together. Not to give things away, but the crashed MyISAM table was the big clue. The next week I left for Santa Clara and the MySQL Users Conference on the 8th. I was only in the office for two days before I was off to California so the crash on the 4th probably didn’t get as much attention as it should have.

As I have blogged about, the conference was great. I returned home on Friday, the 18th. Turns out while we were on the plane that the same server crashed again. This was twice in two weeks. Exact same (non) symptoms — ie nothing obvious. I had talked to a couple of people at the conference about the situation and the lack of any discernible evidence (other than the MyISAM tables). Both people I talked to said it would probably be hardware. By this point I already thought so myself, but it just reinforced my belief. I thought it was either hardware or my servers just miss me when I am not around! We had set up another server to be the slave of the newly promoted master that replaced the crashed server so there was no real rush to get the hardware from the colo. Yesterday we went to the colo for some work and brought back the server that had crashed I plugged it in on our workbench and started up memtest. This morning when I came in … eight memory errors.

So, if you have MyISAM tables and they get marked as crashed in your error log and the server didn’t actually crash you should consider it very likely you have some type of hardware problem. Memory just happens to be the most likely candidate.

Hope this helps someone when they don’t know why the server crashed!!

Blog Metrics Plugin

2008-05-07T17:51:50Z

I almost never write about non-MySQL related things. But this is too cool not to talk about. I have always used what amounts to stock Wordpress blogging software. I have been curious for some time how much I actually blog. Well, browsing for plug-ins today I came across the Blog Metrics plug-in. It has all kind of cool stats. Here is a sample of results and what I have done for the last fifteen months:

Blog Metrics

Last 30 days

Raw Author Contribution

10 posts per month
Avg: 326 words per post

Conversation Rate Per Post

Avg:	1.6 comments
Avg:	132 words in comments
Avg:	0.3 trackbacks

Full Stats

Author(s):	2
Posts:	150
Words in posts:	48838
Comments:	238
Words in comments:	19894
Trackbacks:	38
Months blogging:	15

Raw Author Contribution

29 posts this month
Avg: 290 words per post

Conversation Rate Per Post

Avg:	0.9 comments
Avg:	39 words in comments
Avg:	0.6 trackbacks

Full Stats

Author(s):	1
Words in posts:	8412
Comments:	27
Words in comments:	1153
Trackbacks:	17

Author stats for the last 30 days

admin

Raw Author Contribution

29 posts this month
Avg: 290 words per post

Conversation Rate Per Post

Avg:	0.9 comments
Avg:	39 words in comments
Avg:	0.6 trackbacks

Full Stats

Words in posts:	8412
Comments:	27
Words in comments:	1153
Trackbacks:	17

Author stats

admin

Raw Author Contribution

18.5 posts per month
Avg: 276 words per post

Conversation Rate Per Post

Avg:	1.5 comments
Avg:	86 words in comments
Avg:	0.3 trackbacks

Full Stats

Posts:	111
Words in posts:	30625
Comments:	161
Words in comments:	9645
Trackbacks:	38
Months blogging:	6

bmurphy

Raw Author Contribution

2.6 posts per month
Avg: 467 words per post

Conversation Rate Per Post

Avg:	2 comments
Avg:	262 words in comments
Avg:	0 trackbacks

Full Stats

Posts:	39
Words in posts:	18213
Comments:	77
Words in comments:	10249
Trackbacks:	0
Months blogging:	15

When I changed setups a while ago I changed login names..that why it show two authors - “admin” and “bmurphy”. So, if you have a blog this is a very useful plug-in to keep track of your blogging.

Job Posts for Developer and DBA Positions with MySQL Magazine

2008-05-05T01:39:09Z

I have a new idea. Actually, to give credit were credit is due, my lovely wife had a good idea. She mentioned it to me a week or so before the spring issue of the magazine came out. Too late for that issue. However, I am going to implement it for the summer issue of the magazine.

So here is what happens. Almost every day I get emails, comments on my blog, or linked-in emails about MySQL DBA positions. I know that many companies are hurting, looking for dbas and MySQL proficient developers. The magazine is targeted at MySQL DBAs and developers. So when someone downloads the magazines you are almost assured of reaching your target audience.

Hmmm…why didn’t I think of this before? A natural match. Now, I don’t want to turn this into a Monster job site, but I think the magazine can offer a service. So, if your company is looking for a MySQL DBA or a developer send me an email at bmurphy AT paragon-cs.com and we can talk. There will be a very reasonable listing fee. The magazine currently comes out once a quarter. In addition to having a job listing in the magazine I will put together a page on the website (http://www.mysqlzine.net) for the job posting.

Call for Articles for MySQL Magazine — Summer Issue

2008-05-03T03:03:08Z

Hey everyone!! Just wanted you to know that it’s “that time”. The summer issue of MySQL Magazine will be coming out July the 15th. That means that it is time to start gathering the articles. If you have interest in having your words read by thousands of people and having fame and fortune come to you (ok..maybe fame but probably not fortune) than you should submit an idea for an article. Articles must be completed by June the 15th so don’t delay!!

Have I got your interest? Send me an idea for an article to bmurphy AT paragon-cs.com. Anything relating to DBA work on MySQL or software development around MySQL will be considered.

Want to Try Out Some Free Software?

2008-05-02T17:00:15Z

I am looking for someone who would be interested in trying out some software. Give it an honest spin. I need a review written for the upcoming summer issue of MySQL Magazine (http://www.mysqlzine.net). Maybe two or three pages including screenshots. The magazine is slated to be released on July the 15th and the article will need to be in by June the 15th. Please contact me : bmurphy AT paragon-cs.com. Authors get a small amount of money so there is some incentive!!

Experience with Dell Powervault MD3000

2008-04-29T21:36:32Z

Hey everyone. Haven’t been writing since I got back from the conference. Been busy with other things. But I would love to get some input on something I don’t have any experience.

I am evaluating possible solutions for expanding storage on our servers. All the way from a full blown SAN to something as simple as ripping out the hard drives currently in the servers and replacing them with larger units. One of the possibilities is using a Powervault MD300 which is a direct-connect RAID unit that can attach to up to four servers. It would resolved some space issues we have on a few servers without require an enormous expense of a couple of SANs. In theory it should actually be faster than the internal RAID as it has a larger cache.

Things I am particulary interested in:

general impressions
reliability
is having four servers going to slow it down that much?
the java software for management…I understand it can work from any client computer. Does this mean you don’t have to install any additional software on the server itself?

Thanks!!

New Maatkit Tutorial for mk-table-checksum

2008-04-24T17:35:06Z

Hey everyone, I just posted a tutorial I wrote for the maatkit toolkit. This tutorial only covers the mk-table-checksum tool and the udf that Baron coded which speeds up the checksum process quite dramatically (small benchmark test included in tutorial). I really don’t have it linked into my website yet, but the direct download is here.

Baron, thanks for the hard work on the toolkit. We really appreciate it.

Enjoy!!