Oracle announced that the release candidate for MySQL 5.5, the most popular open-source database, is now available.
The release candidate, a version with potential to be a final product, features several enhancements in performance and scalability, availability and usability, says the database giant.
According to Oracle, it helps improve the performance and scalability of applications across multiple operating environments, including Windows, Linux, and Mac.
Edward Screven, chief corporate architect at Oracle, says the company continues to invest in MySQL technology and supports the thriving MySQL user community.
“The availability of MySQL 5.5 release candidate is a testament to Oracle's focus on helping not only LAMP users, but also Windows users maximise the performance and reliability of critical application environments, while reducing cost. Oracle now has two superior database alternatives to SQLServer, both delivering better value and broader platform support to end users and ISVs.”
In terms of improvements in performance and scalability, the company says MySQL Server and the InnoDB storage engine have been enhanced to provide optimum performance and scalability when running on the latest multi-CPU and multi-core hardware and operating systems.
Speaking of higher availability, Oracle says semi-synchronous replication betters failover reliability by allowing the master database to proceed without waiting for acknowledgement from all the slave databases. Once one slave acknowledges, the transaction can be committed. In this way, data integrity is improved.
In database replication, the master database is regarded as the authoritative source, and the slave databases are synchronised to it.
The company says, in terms of usability, improved index and table partitioning enables RANGE and LIST partitions to be defined on date, datetime, varchar, and char columns, simplifying and extending MySQL and adding flexibility to indexing and query tuning.
Database administrators (DBAs) and developers can save time using the ANSI/ISO standard SIGNAL/RESIGNAL syntax inside stored routines, including triggers, to raise an error condition invoking specific error handling within their applications.
Finally, enhanced diagnostics provide low-level diagnostics on MySQL server performance statistics, allowing DBAs to pinpoint resource-intensive processes and events, streamlining efforts and increasing their productivity.
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