Abstract:

This presentation will highlight the free open source database platform MySQL and why it is becoming more and more suitable to power your organisation. In recent years MySQL has grown from an open source database that was suitable for mainly web applications to a more serious alternative for it's paid competitors like e.g. Oracle and SQL server. The newer version range 5.0 that was first released in 2005 and 5.1 that was released just last month add a lot of features for the more serious database usage.
The main reasons to choose MySQL over other DBMS's are:
1) MySQL is a very versatile system, suitable for many applications ranging from e.g. blogs, CMS's and websites to data warehouses, mail servers and much more
2) It is free to install, and does not take a dedicated DBA to administer, making it's TCO much lower than for instance it's competitor Oracle. In these times of economic trouble, this makes it a very good way to cut budgets.
3) It is open source software, backed by a large corporation (Sun Microsystems). This makes it have the best aspects of both worlds: Because it is open source it is easily customisable, it has transparent design and everybody can contribute or fix bugs when they want to. The coporate backing however makes sure that a well thought out development roadmap exists, it's development is steady and guaranteed and paid support is available for those needing it.
4) It has an incredibly large and friendly userbase, which makes solving problems so much easier. All you usually need to do is search google for your problem and it is very likely that there are people having encountered the same problem, making it easy to fix. Should you be unable to find a solution to your problem, the friendly but dedicated userbase is eager to help.
5) It has advanced features, making it ideal for High Performance and High availability setups. Many interesting side projects exist to make these kinds of setups easier and easier, and new versions of MySQL have increasing support for these special needs-setups.
6) Some really big companies and websites are using MySQL in their organisation. Some examples include Facebook, Digg, Google, NASA and CERN.
7) It scales very well. Initally it can be run on a machine that runs other applications as well, but it can also be clustered or partitioned to run off of many, many servers.

Of course it is really important to keep in mind that you always have to use the right tool for the right job: MySQL is just not the best tool for specific situations. For instance, complicated subqueries are just not MySQL's strongpoint. Nevertheless, it is always good to keep up to speed of the players in the DBMS market over time. The IT industry is a very fast changing industry and what is true now might not be as tru in a few years.

For the next couple of years, MySQL's future is looking very bright. If you haven't done so already, look into using it in your organisation now!

Keywords:

technology, mysql, system administration, dbms, database, open source, free software.