On first glance, it looks like TEXT and VARCHAR can store the same information. However, there are fundamental differences between the way TEXT fields and VARCHAR fields work, which are important to take into consideration.

Last week, I was at the NetApp office in North Sydney for the presentation on

In this sample chapter from MySQL Tutorial, published by MySQL Press, authors Luke Welling and Laura Thomson explain the basics of transactions, and how the InnoDB storage engine can be used to achieve ACID compliance.(2004-08-11)

The MySQL database server features a distinctive modular architecture. The core "upper level" features of the server, such as the network layer, SQL parser, and query optimizer, are separated from the underlying data storage by a well-defined interface. Adding a storage engine to MySQL is a fairly straightforward task, and in this article John David Duncan explains how to get started with your own storage engine.(2004-12-09)

More than at any other time, database professionals are being aggressively challenged by mushrooming volumes of data in corporate business systems. While some industry analysts project data growth at an average rate of 42% a year, that figure is conservative in some installations where growth rates are several hundred percent, with no end in sight.(2005-09-06)

Insights from the developers behind MySQL Partitioning. How is partitioning implemented, how does it work in the server and with the storage engines? What solutions can it be a part of and what problems does it introduce? We present a new partitioning type: Column list, range partitioning on any column type. And give the status of the current development.

Recently faced with the problem of an ordinary table growing too large to back up or maintain, we designed a MySQL-Proxy-based storage cluster which seamlessly integrates with the rest of the database and offers redundancy, cluster-member failure protection, load balancing, and information lifecycle management (data age-out) capabilities.

Experienced SQL developers know how to solve a class of quite different problems efficiently with the help of an auxiliary sequence table: We'll learn from them with easy to understand hands-on examples -- and meet the SeqEngine, a pluggable storage engine for MySQL 5.1 that helps us to apply the expert's tricks even more efficiently.

The Spider Storage Engine creates table-links from local databases to remote databases. To supports XA transaction and table partitioning itself, the Spider also created for the database shardings. Spider Storage Engine is being offered to the public by GPL. http://spiderformysql.com

ScaleDB storage engine delivers high performance transaction processing capability with row level locking and multi-node concurrency control. It enhances performance through innovative indexing technology and delivers low cost computing with a Shared Disk architecture. When applications demand more computing power, additional servers are added to the cluster to scale the system capacity.

You don't have to read source code -- understanding how MySQL works can be achieved through the system data. Learn a wide range of topics in this 3-hour tutorial, and leave armed with tons of knowledge about how MySQL 5.0, 5.1 and 6.0 work. You will take home a healthy understanding of performance tuning, storage engines, replication and many tips and tricks to help you be a better DBA.

Q4M (http://q4m.31tools.com) is a high-performance message queue that works as a pluggable storage engine of MySQL, used by Mixi (Japan's largest SNS provider) and Cybozu Labs (for running Pathtraq, one of the nation's largest web access stats service), etc. The presentation will cover from the design principles of Q4M, to how it is used to modularize, stabilize, and extend the web services.

MySQL Cluster is unique among the selection of MySQL storage engines in that's not exclusively dependent on a MySQL server. The result is that a cluster can be accessed just as any other MySQL database or directly with the native NDB API. This session will cover application development with MySQL Cluster and Java using NDB/J.

Feeling the pressures of data warehousing? Costs growing non-linearly? Are data growth, ad-hoc queries and near real-time data availability requirements threatening to take your DW system past the event horizon? Let us show you how to create a scalable, open source, low cost data warehouse with MySQL & the Calpont storage engine.

The InnoDB storage engine has been modified to use memcached as a level 2 cache, the InnoDB buffer pool being the level 1. Important reduction of the disk load and performance boost has been observed. This opens a new way of scaling out MySQL.

The Falcon Storage Engine is designed to take advantage of multi-core computers. It is reaching GA at a time when computer performance is being increased mostly by adding more cores. Falcon's unique characteristics will be explained and contrasted with InnoDB and other MySQL storage engines.

This session will highlight some of the architectural specifics of the DB2 Storage Engine as well as discuss uses and benefits of the storage engine.

Writing a custom engine can seem intimidating and creating a generic engine can be. This presentation will show how to refine the requirements to a manageable subset. We will discuss the problem addressed, the approach chosen, storage engine design and API required to implement the design. We will talk about lessons learned implementing the storage engine to improve flexibility and performance.

Enterprise email is broken. From managing metadata to the inefficiency of multiple message storage, IT administrators have long bemoaned the task of implementing a scalable, affordable, reliable messaging architecture. Zimbra and MySQL’s combined expertise has altered the way administrators control their email servers through the development of a more effective back end for messaging architecture.

An updated overview of MySQL High Availability deployment options with DRBD. Covers DRBD for low-latency workloads (leveraging Dolphin Express interconnect technology), four-way replicated storage redundancy, end-to-end replication integrity checking, and more.