Modern MySQL Forks and Patches

Spoiled for Choice

Article from ADMIN 01/2010

By Caspar Clemens Mierau

MySQL is the standard solution for free relational database systems in web applications, but new forks, more storage engines, and patched versions muddy the water. Now's the time to take stock of the most important offerings.

If your MySQL server is too slow, you have various approaches to solving the problem. Besides optimizing queries and indexes, reworking the configuration, and upgrading your hardware, moving to a customized version of the MySQL server can be a good idea. In recent years, so many patches, forks, and new storage engines have been released that it is hard to keep track of them. For hard-working developers and database administrators, this means a change from the simple choice of a standard MySQL distribution.

Little Band-aids

Many enhancements for MySQL come from major corporations like Facebook [1] and Google [2], who run their ad services on top of MySQL or from MySQL specialists like Percona [3], whose claim to fame is the "MySQL Performance Blog" [4] (standard reading for anyone interested in MySQL). The patches can be grouped into three categories: (1) reporting enhancements, (2) functional enhancements of the MySQL kernel and database engines, and (3) performance optimizations. In most cases, a combination of patches from all three categories will make the most sense. Moving to a database server that you patched and compiled yourself can be a daunting prospect. Thankfully, projects such as OurDelta [5] offer repositories with meaningfully patched and prebuilt MySQL packages for popular distributions like Debian, Ubuntu, and CentOS/RHEL. The patches I will be looking at in the rest of this article are a cross-section of the current OurDelta versions of the MySQL server; see their website for a complete list of patches and notes on how to use them.

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