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Archive for the ‘Drizzle’ Category

The future of open source SQL databases (as I see it)

January 9th, 2010 1 comment

With the whole MySQL/Oracle issue going on, I find myself looking into the future and how I see it. As far as I'm concerned, MySQL will start to lose it's popularity as the landscape changes. As far as I am concerned, there will be two key players in the MySQL replacement market, those being Drizzle and MariaDB.

I am not just saying Drizzle just because I help out with the project in various ways, however, that should be a good sign that I believe in it if I am willing to put any effort into it. With people behind it like Brian Aker, Eric Day, Monty Taylor, Stewart Smith, Jay Pipes, you've got a coding powerhouse that could solve the cancer issue if it was up to software development to fix it. These guys work around the clock and have been refactoring and re-examining everything inside of MySQL. What's going to be left ideally is a superfast microkernel that supports plugins for everything - leveraging the best options out there for replication, messaging, storage engines, etc. Growing apart from the monolithic huge distribution model that MySQL currently follows.

The second key player is MariaDB. Another fork off of MySQL, led by Monty Widenius himself and with other MySQL key players behind it, there is no doubt it will continue Monty's legacy as being able to spin success out of a tiny little open source product. I believe it will stay more traditional in-line with MySQL, but will provide more advanced functionality and scalability as it is developed further.

I won't get into other options like PostgreSQL as I don't follow the rest of the community there much.

Also, we'll see more NoSQL (did we ever bottom out on a better term for that?) options. CouchDB and MongoDB (both of which from a 50,000 foot view look identical from a usage model) and options like Cassandra will also become important and your data needs will become the decision maker for going with a SQL or a NoSQL database. Both of which offer advantages. However, I see Drizzle as making huge strides in leveling the playing field (or attempting to) with it's replication work to make it as scalable as NoSQL databases seem to be with their ability to scale out and replicate changes easily (which to me are their main selling point right now...)

Anyway, this is from a user perspective, not a developer perspective, and from what I've seen from #drizzle on freenode, a few SQL and open source conferences, blog talk and my own gut feelings.

I should make a note that I still use MySQL and will probably continue for some time. Neither Drizzle nor MariaDB are production-friendly yet. However, I believe 2010 should see the first "production capable" release of Drizzle (not sure of MariaDB.)

It is an exciting time though as we're starting to be presented with more options by the day, in fact there are so many various NoSQL databases now, key/value stores, and even a few more SQL databases that it's too hard to keep track of them anymore. There's a lot of code being written and with this whole Oracle possibly inheriting MySQL depending on the EU's judgement, it could ultimately help usher in some of these smaller projects into the spotlight quicker depending on what Oracle does with MySQL...

Categories: Drizzle, Software

WordPress on Drizzle - beaten to the punch

June 17th, 2009 No comments

Looks like Jeff Waugh actually beat me to it.

Haven't seen the code... but he's done it and sounds like he's done a somewhat thorough job.

Sadly I learned this from Brian's presentation on Drizzle at OS Bridge. Doh.

Categories: Drizzle, WordPress

Porting WordPress to Drizzle - will I succeed?

May 14th, 2009 1 comment

Since I can't write C to save my life, I'm attempting to help out in other ways. This has been in the form of donating machine time, helping with the wiki, blog and being a general smartass on #drizzle.

However, where I can provide some help is trying to showcase and see how apps may need to change to work with Drizzle as opposed to MySQL.

I will admit, this may go nowhere as I am consistently swamped with work and a busy social life, but it might be something fun to mess around with to get used to working with Drizzle and possibly come up with something to give back to the community.

I don't expect a huge amount of changes. I think some column types might need to change and definately the DB class (I will be using the native drizzle-php-ext module, even though I believe the mysql/mysqli/etc. modules may work transparently already) - so we shall see.

So wish me luck!

Categories: Drizzle

Unicode schemas - IMHO, a horrible idea

December 7th, 2008 No comments

Stewart, Brian and Jay were having some fun and were able to implement support for Unicode characters in Drizzle schemas.

I pretty sure that this is not allowed in -any- massively used database. So +1 for Drizzle right?

In my mind, not so much.

First off, it should go to show that if the main website linking to your blog can't even display the character correctly, maybe it's time to rethink if it is something worth keeping.

Second, while this helps prove that everything in Drizzle will be Unicode capable, it creates an utter nightmare for supporting schemas created with high ascii or foreign characters. Some of us are already supporting other people's existing Latin-based schemas. Now add in the need to have a character map open and terminal windows that can copy/paste/display Unicode characters, and the difficulty of working with these has increased ten-fold. Not to mention the filenames storing the databases/tables on the filesystem will become harder to work with too.

Lastly, look at everything out there that -is- Latin-based and nobody is affected, for example:

  • The programming languages themselves - C, C++ (PHP, Java, whatever)
  • Existing schemas in any DB
  • Domain names (Unicode support doesn't seem to have taken off still)

It is just a matter of life that native Chinese people have to develop code in Latin-based characters, have to design their schemas (currently), and have to visit the majority of websites (if not all) in Latin-based characters. I don't see anyone trying to change C or C++ to support Unicode characters... there just isn't a real reason for it.

To summarize, in my opinion - what seems cool today will become a headache in the future if unleashed. I am totally in support for end-to-end (and only) Unicode support for data and such, but allowing it in schemas are a bit too much.

Categories: Drizzle

Drizzle.org + MediaWiki = spam?

December 7th, 2008 No comments

Not anymore! (Well, basically)

I've changed the default privileges so only registered users can post. It still means that these spammy bots can post if they have an account and/or can still register (I don't think MediaWiki does anything to thwart automated signups) - but this should make it a little bit more managable.

If I run into this again, I guess I'll have to look for third party modules to plug in.

Categories: Drizzle

Establishing a permanent address for the Drizzle

October 24th, 2008 5 comments

In my mind, Drizzle is shaping up to be the next hottest thing. As I can't help the project directly with code (C/C++ isn't my forte, no matter how hard I try), I'm trying to help in other ways. One of the ways is helping Drizzle establish a solid web presence and providing them with anything else I can give in support.

First off, I hunted for a proper domain name - drizzle.org. It wasn't "in use" per-se, it was parked, and I approached the owner. After some negotiation I was able to get it down to a number that didn't give the team much heartburn. Prior to announcing this publicly which could interfere with the transaction, I fronted the money myself and I am now working on getting the money back from donations. A lot has already been pledged by #drizzle on freenode. If you'd like to contribute, please feel free to send any amount via Paypal to "paypal AT mike2k.com"

I will keep the domain in my possession safely until the Drizzle Foundation is created (I believe it is in the works) or one of the core team has a safe haven for it. In the meantime, if it's desired we can start developing/working on a website, etc.

The goal is to raise roughly $1000 USD to cover the domain + Escrow costs. I've already said I would contribute a chunk of that. Please include in the PayPal description your full name/company/whatever identifying information you'd like and if you'd like it recorded, and I will record it and if the Drizzle guys wish, we can post your info on the [not established yet] website as a Drizzle supporter.

Note that this is not tax deductable or anything as there isn't an official foundation yet, and I am not sure the foundation will be a proper 501(c) anyway. This is purely an announcement that the domain has been purchased and a chance for the community to donate (or otherwise reimburse me, which will help since next month is property tax month :))

Categories: Drizzle