MySQL 5.5 Release Candidate Announced by Oracle

Oracle (News - Alert) has been continuously delivering new innovations to MySQL. The release candidate for MySQL 5.5 is now available. Oracle made an announcement in this regard during the first MySQL Sunday event at Oracle OpenWorld.

The latest enhancements in performance and scalability, availability and usability will be showcased by the release candidate. The performance and scalability of applications across multiple operating environments is improved with the MySQL 5.5 release candidate.

Optimum (News - Alert) performance and scalability will be provided by MySQL Server and InnoDB. This will be provided when running on the latest multi-CPU and multi-core hardware and operating systems. The default storage engine for MySQL Server is now InnoDB. ACID transactions, referential integrity, and crash recovery are now delivered by InnoDB.

Failover reliability is improved with new semi-synchronous replication. The master is allowed to proceed without waiting for acknowledgments from all the slaves. Faster detection, diagnosis and correction of master/slave synchronization issues are possible with Replication Heart Beat. The reliability and availability of data is therefore improved.

The MySQL 5.5 release candidate also offers improved usability. Low-level diagnostics on MySQL server performance statistics is possible with enhanced diagnostics, including a new PERFORMANCE_SCHEMA. Resource-intensive processes and events can therefore be pinpointed by DBAs. These can also streamline efforts and improve the productivity. Compared to MySQL 5.1, the recent benchmarks results using the MySQL 5.5 release candidate showed dramatic improvement in terms of performance.

Edward Screven, chief corporate architect at Oracle said, “We continue to invest in MySQL technology and support the thriving MySQL user community. The availability of MySQL 5.5 release candidate is a testament to Oracle's focus on helping not only LAMP users, but also Windows users maximize the performance and reliability of critical application environments while reducing cost. Oracle now has two superior database alternatives to SQLServer, both delivering better value and broader platform support to end users and ISVs."

Don MacAskill, CEO of SmugMug has been impressed with the improvements provided by MySQL 5.5. Whopping 128K transactions in flight are now possible. MacAskill said this has been the best performance from Oracle.