Session Program (Nov. 9 and 10, 2004)

Keynote Presentation

Speaker: Kaj Arnö (My SQL AB)

With a view at technology, community and business, MySQL VP Kaj Arnö will describe the current state of MySQL half a year after the MySQL Users Conference in Orlando 2004 and half a year before the MySQL Users Conference in Santa Clara 2005.

The technology topics of the address will include the cool new things that have been going on with MySQL 4.1 and MySQL 5.0, along with the work that has been done on the MySQL GUI tools, the MySQL Connectors and the MySQL Cluster product.

Other topics are the MySQL community relations, the MySQL business model, and a look at how MySQL AB is doing in the marketplace.

Confession Time - Deadly Sins in MySQL

Speaker: Arjen Lentz (MySQL AB)

So many things just seem like a good idea, or make perfect sense at the time... but they are so utterly bad in the long run. MySQL has many features, and some are often abused for what I would call evil purposes. Perhaps you can think of some yourself? Other issues are that old relational database "rules" do not always apply in 2004. But people just remember the rule, not the reason.
This talk with cover a wide range of 'no-no's. We will discuss them, and look at better solutions. You may wish to take notes! The title was to get your attention, but I promise we'll keep it lighthearted.

Taking Advantage InnoDB's New Table Formats & InnoDB Roadmap

Speaker: Heikki Tuuri (Innobase Oy)

Since MySQL 4.1.1 a new option, namely innodb_file_per_table, in new my.cnf is supported. It forces the InnoDB engine to store each InnoDB table into its own .ibd file in the database directory, allowing distributing databases to different physical devices. The occupied space is freed when the table is dropped. Previously tablespace never shrank.
Prospective is the introduction of asyncronous I/O on Linux, only utilized on Windows before, as well as the implementation of a new InnoDB table format, which saves memory and disk space. The latter is scheduled to be finished soon. Planned for 2005 are transparently zip-compressed tables and indices, implementation of an online index generation algorithm.
Finally, but of great importance are bug fixing and further codebase optimizations.

MySQL and Progress Toward the SQL Standard(s)

Speaker: Peter Gulutzan (MySQL AB)

MySQL AB devoted a major part of its recent development efforts to accomplishing compliance with the official SQL standard. Hear about the efforts, the progress, and the remaining issues. Also: what's up with this latest version of the ANSI/ISO standard? And how do DB2, Oracle, SQL Server, and MySQL compare with respect to "Core" standard features? Learn about the official standard features, which are requirements for what the ANSI/ISO standard document calls "Core SQL" compliance.

MySQL5: Stored Procedure Demonstration

Speaker: Peter Gulutzan (MySQL AB)

A hands-on session that demonstrates the use of stored procedures and then walks the students through some sample problems. You may benefit from bringing your own laptop computer, with MySQL 5.0 installed. The latest versions of the software can be downloaded from www.mysql.com.

MySQL Certification

Speaker: Carsten Pedersen (MySQL AB)

"Pass the certification exam today and make more money tomorrow!"
Right? Not quite. To realize the potential of certification exams, developers, DBAs and managers need to know what makes up a certification - studying, going to the exam and how to use your certification once you have it. MySQL Certfication Manager Carsten Pedersen will outline why a company would want to retain certified developers, focusing on issues such as confidence in development and the overall benefits for the industry and MySQL expert community. During the second part, he will coach attendees on how to pass the MySQL certification by sharing study tips and available study materials and how developers can use certifications to get better jobs, stronger peer contacts and a more focused career path.

Lowering TCOs for SAP Environments with MaxDB

Speaker: Patrik Backman (MySQL AB)

The benefits of Open Source Software can now be further realized in the infrastructures for SAP environments. MaxDB is a scalable, secure and heavy duty database, which is developed and optimized for the different SAP usage scenarios, and is now offered by MySQL worldwide. With MaxDB as the database for solutions like SAP, customers can receive significant benefits through decreased Total Cost of Ownership. This session presents the MaxDB product offering of MySQL AB, and examines the TCO benefits of the product through a real-life business case.

An Introduction to MySQL Cluster (part I)

Speaker: Max Mether (MySQL AB)

MySQL trainer Max Maether introduces MySQL Cluster, going through the current state of MySQL Cluster, how to use it, examples of applications benefiting from its use. He will also discuss the architecture of MySQL Cluster, focusing on how the database is separated into separate nodes grouped into clusters for reliability, how failure is handled gracefully and describe the mechanisms for availability in MySQL Cluster. He will also discuss the extensions and improvements developed for MySQL 5.0

An Introduction to MySQL Cluster (part II)

Speaker: Max Mether (MySQL AB)

MySQL trainer Max Maether introduces MySQL Cluster, going through the current state of MySQL Cluster, how to use it, examples of applications benefiting from its use. He will also discuss the architecture of MySQL Cluster, focusing on how the database is separated into separate nodes grouped into clusters for reliability, how failure is handled gracefully and describe the mechanisms for availability in MySQL Cluster. He will also discuss the extensions and improvements developed for MySQL 5.0

MySQL Replication

Speaker: Max Mether (MySQL AB)

This session provides an overview of database replication in MySQL. Database replication enables users to make a database on one machine a permanently up-to-date copy of another database on another machine, thus achieving high availability (through redundancy) and speed (through load balancing).
The major topics of the session are:
The various meanings of "database replication" ((a)synchronous, clusters, etc.); MySQL and other DBMS. Key advantages of replication (versus backups for example). But key concerns too, then (or "what the replication support of a DBMS must feature for you to trust it"). Replication implementation in MySQL overview how the above key concerns are dealt with using commands to manage replication, with examples MySQL code excerpts. Upcoming features of MySQL replication.

PHP5's new mysqli extension

Speaker: Georg Richter (MySQL AB)

PHP5's new mysql extension allows you to access the functionality provided by MySQL 4.1 and above. In this session Georg Richter, author and maintainer of the mysqli extension, will show you new key features, the object-oriented interface and how to use mysqli for writing better applications.
Major topics are object-oriented interface, prepared statements, cursors, local infile handling, optimization, future enhancements.

MySQL Storage Engines - SQL access to existing stock data

Speaker: Hartmut Holzgraefe (MySQL AB) , Jan Kneschke (MySQL AB)

MySQL provides several storage handlers with different features. Standard handlers include MyISAM handler, transational BDB and InnoDB handlers, in memory heap tables, ...

The storage engines are cleanly seperated from the higher level database functionalities like SQL parsing using a C++ class interface. Every storage handler derives from the C++ 'handler' class and implements data access in form of a serial access manager, optionaly with index support.

Starting with MySQL version 4.1 we are now making this interface public. There is no documentation in our manual yet but we added some example handlers with excessive comments in them help to get you started.

This talk will show how to implement a storage handler step by step using a real world example. We will walk through the creation of a storage handler interface based on an existing library that provides read access to Microsoft Access *.mdb data files.

Fulltext Search

Speaker: Sergei Golubchik (MySQL AB)

There is often a need to quickly search a collection of textual information for given words or topics. MySQL Fulltext Search was created to satisfy this need, while co-existing natively with all the power of SQL. This talk will show how to use MySQL Fulltext Search properly, what design principles it is based on, and in which direction the development is going.

Opening the Toy Box: A Hands-on Overview of MySQL's New Features

Speaker: Zak Greant

This session will focus on how to use the major new features in MySQL 4.1 and 5.0. During the session, each major piece of functionality will be accurately described. The major new feature sets that will be demonstrated are: prepared Statements, sub-queries, views, internationalization support, errors and warnings, new API functions.

Views and Subqueries

Speaker: Hartmut Holzgraefe (MySQL AB)

Views and subqueries are new features in MySQL 4.1 and 5.0. This talk will cover the basics of using views and subqueries including: what are subqueries and views, and how do they work, subqueries in WHERE/HAVING clause, subqueries inside joins, performance impact of subqueries: rewriting subqueries as joins and vice versa, VIEW creation/dropping syntax and MySQL's extension of them, two ways of VIEW processing (merge and temporary table algorithms), privileges used with view (creation/dropping/showing/selecting/updating), MySQL specific privileges, compatibility of MySQL VIEWs, examples of using VIEWs, VIEWs and subqueries in the FROM clause (commons and differences).

Performance Tuning J2EE Applications deployed on MySQL

Speaker: Mark Matthews (MySQL AB)

This session will cover a performance tuning methodology for J2EE applications deployed with MySQL. Topics covered will include performance measurement techniques to identify application server and database bottlenecks. We will then address those bottlenecks by tuning application server and MySQL parameters, as well as query re-writing and applying appropriate indexes. The workshop will conclude with an overview of strategies for applying the measurement techniques in a continuous fashion to enable long term performance and scalability of the application.

Distributed Transaction Processing with MySQL XA

Speaker: Sergei Golubchik (MySQL AB)

Distributed transaction processing, from an exotic concept, has become an important feature of modern database systems. There is often a need to perform complex actions that involve many resourses - and do it atomically, in one "distributed transaction." Two-phase commit protocol is used to ensure that the transaction has completed successfully in all participating resources.
This talk will cover an X/Open model and standard for distributed transaction (or XA), how it is implemented in MySQL, why and how you should use it.

Managing and Visualising GIS data with PHP and MySQL 4.1

Speaker: Jan Kneschke (MySQL AB)

MySQL 4.1 introduces the OpenGIS conforming implementation into world of MySQL which allows you to query geographic data with the power of SQL. Many applications on the Web already use geographic data for the daily business without using the benefits of the OpenGIS specification.
We will show the features of the OpenGIS part of MySQL and how easy it is to develop a Web application on top of it which queries and visualises GIS data.

MySQL GUI Tools

Speaker: Michael Zinner (MySQL AB)

With the new MySQL GUI Tools MySQL AB helps developers, DB Administrators and DB Analysts to get the maximum out of MySQL databases. From configuring and administrating the server to querying and migrating databases from other database vendors – everything can now be done through optimized graphical user interfaces.
MySQL AB will give an overview of the tools currently available and a preview of upcoming releases.
Some of the topics that will be discussed in detail are server configuration and monitoring, data querying and maintenance, migration from other database systems and many more.

Migrating to MySQL

Speaker: Jan Kneschke (MySQL AB)

Migrating from one database to another is always a troublesome job. Even if every database uses SQL for maintaining the dataset each vendor uses it in a slightly different way. Knowing the pitfalls simplifies the work a lot.
This talk will take a look at different databases and will analyse the similarities and differences between them and MySQL 4.1. The main focus will be the SQL syntax and the corresponding performance optimisation.

MaxDB extension for PHP

Speaker: Thomas Simenec (SAP AG)

With the MaxDB extension for PHP you can access the functionality provided
by the MaxDB database. The implementation of this extension is based on a native interface called SAP Database Connectivity (SQLDBC) which was purposed to build interfaces like ODBC, Perl DBD and provides fast access to the MaxDB database kernel.
One goal in the development of this extension was to provide compatibility
with the mysqli extension delivered with PHP 5.0. Most of the mysqli function calls in a PHP script can be replaced by MaxDB PHP functions by simply changing
the function name prefix from mysqli to maxdb or vice versa. Due to the fact that the underlying SQLDBC is a very thin layer of abstraction, you can expect a high performance when using MaxDB with PHP. The extension can be used with PHP 4.3.6 and above.

The history of MySQL (Or How we came to be here)

Speaker: David Axmark (MySQL AB)

What was the reasons that the MySQL project/company was started? How did we manage with just two part time people in the beginning? Why the name MySQL? How come we did not have any transaction support from the beginning? When did we pass 1000 downloads?
This talk will talk about the history of MySQL and mention some milestones that has happened through the years (and a few pictures from the history will also be included!)