OSCON: solidDB Beefs Up MySQL OLTP Choices

by Dave Harms

Published 2006-07-28    Printer-friendly version

The open source database landscape has shifted somewhat in the last year, with Oracle on a buying rampage, picking up SleepyCat (Berkeley DB) and InnoDB, both of which provide back end file systems for MySQL. Berkeley DB is a flat file system, and InnoDB adds transaction processing and other capabilities to MySQL. Oracle also tried to buy MySQL AB but was rebuffed.

The sale of InnoDB to Oracle has left some MySQL users with concerns over the long-term availability of transaction support, despite Oracle's assurances that it will continue Innobase's relationship with MySQL.

Seeking an opportunity to enter the open source marketplace, high end database provider Solid Information Technology has stepped up with a version of its OLTP database for MySQL, released in beta on July 25.

Solid Information Technology has a track record in the telecommunications industry. Founded in 1992 in Finland, the company has sold mission critical databases predominantly to network equipment manufacturers like Nortel and Siemens. The first product shipped in 1994, and as Senior Product Manager Murat Demiroglu notes, all the original developers are still with the company. There are more than three million Solid database installations worldwide.

Features of the proprietary version include sub-second failover, high scalability, and high reliability. An SQL product since 1994, Solid's OLTP database has the expected mainstream features such as triggers, stored procedures, and events. ODBC and JDBC drivers are also available for the proprietary product.

Solid's version of its database engine for MySQL is licensed under the GPL, and uses MySQL's pluggable architecture. Access is through MySQL's front end, using drivers/providers already available for MySQL.

In an interview at OSCON 2006, Demiroglu made the point that high availability web sites have similar OLTP needs to those in the telephone industry, such as many short transactions and a high level of concurrency. solidDB offers optimistic and pessimistic concurrency, and row level locking. A unique indexing technique called the Bonsai Tree makes multiversion concurrency control possible for reads as well as rights which improves scalability. Partitioning of databases is scheduled for MySQL 5.1, at which time solidDB will take advantage of this capability.

In a low end environment, with one CPU, InnoDB is admittedly faster. But Solid's target market is larger, mission critical systems with high concurrency, many transactions, and multiple processors. solidDB is designed to excel in these environments.

The solidDB storage engine is currently bundled with MySQL 5.0, and source code is now included. Releases are available for Windows and Linux, and more platforms will be added over time.

The licensing arrangement between MySQL and Solid was helped along by close proximity - both companies are located in the same Cupertino office building.

 

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David Harms is an independent software developer and the editor and publisher of Clarion Magazine. He is also co-author with Ross Santos of Developing Clarion for Windows Applications, published by SAMS (1995), and has written or co-written several Java books. David is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA).

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