The open source database MySQL has developed to this day and has a very broad user base. Some people say that it has launched a strong challenge to traditional commercial databases. Some people say that it has yet to prove itself in the enterprise environment. This article will distinguish between these two aspects. List five reasons why MySQL is worth choosing.
1. Five reasons why MySQL is worthy of our choice.
The most difficult part of listing the reasons for choosing MySQL is how to sort these reasons. This is like the story we often debate: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Does MySQL's low cost come from its simplicity? Does its popularity come from its low cost? In fact, between the "best" and the most popular MySQL There is no clear dividing line between the "bad" features, but together they form a composition for us to admire.
In any case, market results have proven that MySQL is cost-effective, flexible, widely used and well supported. Below, we list the top five reasons why MySQL is worthy of your choice.
1. Popularity
People often say "success breeds success", which is obviously very suitable for MySQL. This open source database claims to have more than 1.1 million complete installations worldwide. A recent survey conducted by the authoritative research agency Evans Data Company showed that MySQL has gained 25% market share in the past two years. The research firm also predicts that more and more developers will continue to choose MySQL over other open source and closed source databases. John Andrews, president of Evans, said that user evaluations of MySQL and other open source databases are catching up to or even surpassing many proprietary commercial database software.
Since the MySQL database has become so popular, it is undoubtedly a better choice for enterprises.
A common voice in the industry believes: "MySQL is a reliable database system. Whether in the deployment of embedded or large cluster systems, or in the field of Web-based applications, users often find that they are not the first to choose MySQL." A pioneer in databases.”
Another benefit of MySQL’s popularity in the industry is that people can always easily discover solutions in this industry. Vendors want their development tools and application frameworks to be compatible with the MySQL database because everyone is using it. MySQL is a standard component of the open source LAMP portfolio: Linux, Apache, MySQL and Perl/PHP. According to Evans' survey, the rapid promotion of the LAMP portfolio largely represents the widespread acceptance of MySQL. According to Evans' survey report, "The use of MySQL will continue to show a growth trend in the future."
2. Simplicity
Compared with other databases, MySQL is easy to learn and use.
You don’t have to spend a lot of time and money training existing employees, or spend a lot of money to hire developers with various certifications. Because the maintenance and management of MySQL is "fool-proof" to a large extent, this directly leads to savings in labor costs. Mitch Pirtle, CEO of Spacemonkey Labs, a MySQL user, said: "Maintaining MySQL means you don't need to A DBA with an annual salary of $150,000, and it is very simple to develop programs with it.
"For the MySQL database, there are now a large number of powerful tools that every novice developer can choose easily.
"Develop with MySQL database. Even an experienced Windows administrator can easily deploy and start learning it without investing a penny to understand this database.
For IT managers, they like the simplicity of MySQL. There is another aspect of performance. MySQL can run faster. Some people may say that MySQL lacks some features that people want, but MySQL supporters believe that the features that MySQL retains are essential and are the best. You deploy, configure and maintain some of the essential features of this database.
"With a simple plan by a capable DBA, MySQL can run at unimaginable speeds," said a senior DBA in MySQL.
features to tie down the CPU or occupy memory. If you need additional features, MySQL's popularityactually
allows you to find a vendor that will provide the exact solution that will meet your needs and requirements.
Thelow-cost
MySQL database is owned by MySQL AB, but the software is open source and there is a community version that can be downloaded for free. Newbies with a little common sense can easily install and configure MySQL on common hardware. The lower requirements are one of its biggest advantages, but here's the thing: the more memory, the better, because all important data storage is done in memory. A free database means more precious funds are available. For launching other businesses, such as marketing, advertising or research and development,
even for the commercial enterprise version of MySQL, there are no high license costs when you compare it with large experts like Oracle and Microsoft. If you compare with commercial databases, you will find that MySQL actually takes up less money. The per-CPU license fee of the former generally ranges from US$4,000 to US$25,000, while the support and maintenance costs of MySQL Enterprise Edition are even lower. It costs 2,000 to 5,000 US dollars per year. Whether you use your own money to create a new company or get sponsorship from venture capitalists, using MySQL can reduce the labor costs you need. As mentioned above, MySQL is easy to learn and easy to use. Easy to deploy, easy to manage and easy to maintain.
For existing businesses, it can be easily migrated to MySQL. When you need to replace old hardware, when you need to reduce the legacy of the old system, choosing MySQL is more suitable for the financial department. Attractive. MySQL deploys quickly, so the migration process causes no disruption to production. Moreover, a short learning curve allows your system administrators to quickly master its operation and maintenance. Furthermore, MySQL's ease of maintenance and management means that current staff can handle current jobs.
4. Good support for
MySQL's dual-license model means that those who want additional control over their database can get help directly from the database vendor. MySQL AB provides support and maintenance services, such as code updates and patching services, for an annual subscription fee of approximately US$3,000. For a fee, customers can receive priority 24/7 support, access to an extensive online knowledge base and contact a dedicated technical manager.
There is also ample support for users of the free version. At dev.mysql.com, a large and robust community of users and developers can discuss all things MySQL. The site features blogs, guides, videos, technical talks, white papers, and forums for communication. The question you encounter may have been asked by someone else in the community, and even if it hasn't, you can ask a question or search for the answer on Google. Relevant person in charge of the community: "The MySQL community is active, friendly and knowledgeable."
5. Flexibility and scalability
Since there are so many additional features available in MySQL, such as storage engines, you can choose the most suitable One for your company, or try multiple engines. MySQL starts very small, but can continue to become more powerful as the company grows. A senior developer at MySQL AB said, "This feature allows MySQL to be adjusted to the needs of your current system."
"MySQL is actually a family of databases. You can choose one and configure it
to meet the needs of your current system." "In most cases," says the president of open source consultancy Ethiqa, "youcan
start with a small version of the product and scale it later in performance or size as needed."
Configuring MySQL to run in a tiny embedded application may process less than 1Mb of data - but you can use it to process terabytes of data. One way MySQL achieves this scalability is through what is known as a stored procedure, which is a tiny, precompiled program that runs outside of the program. These procedures are stored and run on the database server to reduce processing on the client, thereby maximizing processing power because the database server will typically run faster. Stored procedures are not a unique feature of MySQL, but this recent addition makes the database even more attractive than before.
MySQL is ready to support all the most popular Web 2.0 languages, such as Ruby, Ajax, etc., and of course PHP. Some industry analysts have said, "Every Web 2.0 company is essentially a database company." Since MySQL is already a database that runs many well-known Web 2.0 websites, including Craigslist, Digg, Wikipedia, and Google, perhaps we can It is said that every Web 2.0 company is essentially a company using a MySQL database.
2. Five reasons for not using MySQL
. In the process of our work, we often hear many reasons for not using MySQL. Although some of them are misunderstandings about MySQL, some of them are also reasonable. Below I'll describe five resounding reasons not to use MySQL.
First of all, we need to know that there may be many reasons for a technology that we can choose to use, but often only one reason is enough for us not to use it. The same goes for choosing a software product.
1. MySQL licensing method
MySQL adopts dual licensing (Dual Licensed), which are commercial license agreements formulated by GPL and MySQL AB.
If you use MySQL in a free (open source) project that follows the GPL, then you can use MySQL under the GPL license. However, if your project is not under the GPL and you have to pay a license fee to use MySQL, or you may change your project to follow the GPL for this reason, then you need to deal with the resulting support work, which may result in increased costs. In this case, some software publishers may prefer to choose other open source databases, such as PostgreSQL that follows the BSD license.
2. Product Maturity
By 2009, Oracle's database Oracle had already celebrated its 30th anniversary, while MySQL had not even celebrated half of its anniversary. Microsoft's SQL Server is only two years older than MySQL, but the release of SQL Server was based on Sybase, which had been born for 6 years. As for other open source databases worth watching, PostgreSQL will reach its 20th birthday in 2009. Although MySQL is not the youngest database on the market, there are more mature databases for us to choose from.
Of course, maybe this is not a persuasive reason for us to reject MySQL, but for some more conservative IT managers, the maturity of the platform is a factor that must be considered when choosing a platform for some key businesses. , At this point, MySQL undoubtedly has no advantage.
3. Maturity of function settings
It is not easy to make a comprehensive comparison of function settings between MySQL and other databases. What was once a feature list can quickly become outdated as new software versions are released or patches are rolled out. Moreover, some features are important for some applications but not necessarily for others.
Sometimes, some missing functionality can be achieved through other methods. For example, before MySQL 4.1, you could replace the subquery functionality by using the join method. In MySQL 5.0, most of the functions required by relational databases are already available, but we have reason to doubt the maturity of these functions in MySQL 5.0. At best, they have been supported in MySQL for about a year, while in other relational databases they have been supported for nearly 10 years.
4. The role of certification
Although MySQL also has a certification training program, its training is far different from Oracle or MS-SQL. Although some users who use MySQL say that MySQL is easy to get started, users with enterprise-level database requirements undoubtedly hope that employees will receive systematic and in-depth training. Obviously, MySQL has not done enough in this regard.
A related issue is the qualification of third-party support. Although support and services directly from the manufacturer can alleviate this problem to a certain extent, for some enterprises, strong localized support is obviously more attractive.
5. Views on scalability.
For this reason, I put it last. There is a fairly consistent view among many industry experts: MySQL does not scale well. There can be a lot of disagreement on this point, with the debate mainly focusing on horizontal scalability versus vertical scalability. MySQL prefers vertical scalability.
According to my observation, there is a trend now that those DBAs who have received formal training are more inclined to choose a proprietary relational database, such as Oracle. For some larger environments with dedicated database administrators, MySQL is difficult to be favored. At this time, the debate about whether MySQL really has good scalability is meaningless.
It is undeniable that MySQL is also a good relational database. Perhaps technically it is not much different from other leading relational databases, or has no disadvantages. However, for some enterprise environments, MySQL obviously does not have the advantage.