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Oracle guru speaks peace, MySQL old-guard cautious

Closed-source kid gloves applied

MySQL 5.4 tweaks

Zack Urlocker, Sun's vice president of lifecycle marketing, meanwhile, blogged at the MySQL User Conference that Jacobs highlighted forthcoming performance enhancements for MySQL 5.4 that are coming from Oracle and community.

Sun announced a preview version of MySQL 5.4, available here, at the show. Also announced was MySQL Cluster 7.0, the high-availability database that adds support for popular LDAP directories and takes a step towards cluster back-up and maintenance.

Urlocker, who was previously MySQL's vice president of products for Sun's database group, called Jacobs a "straight shooter" who had kept his word on keeping InnoDB open and evolving.

Jacobs might be a straight shooter but his employer has taken what are either some highly idiosyncratic steps or carefully calculated moves in relation to MySQL. In 2005 Oracle bought MySQL transactional storage engine InnoDB, sending alarm through out the community.

It saw individuals subsequently build and refine alternative transaction storage engines despite Oracle's commitment at the time to keep developing InnoDB.

Oracle, meanwhile, chose the MySQL conference to announce the latest update to InnoDB - Embedded InnoDB. The company said Embedded InnoDB will let you embed InnoDB's high-performance and data management features into an application using a small footprint. Embedded InnoDB is available under GPLv2 for Linux and Windows.

The truth is, MySQL probably does have relatively little to worry about under Oracle, in terms of on-going development. It is one of just three Sun software assets worth buying, along with Java and Solaris. MySQL will likely even prosper financially under Oracle.

Do not enter the prize

The issue will be over how far Oracle decides to develop and sell MySQL in the enterprise. Oracle has little problem with MySQL on the web, but the enterprise is Oracle territory.

Jacobs put MySQL in its place at the Open-Source Business Conference (OSBC) in 2008, when he told a panel MySQL had "done a fabulous job of capitalizing web application development" while Oracle had "done a fabulous job" in the enterprise and running packaged applications.

While web and systems integrator were strong for MySQL, Sun has made a determined effort to turn the enterprise downloads of the database into a repeating revenue stream.

Whether Urlocker knew it or not, he hinted at the politics to come in his blog. He cited an International Oracle User Group study that said a third of Oracle shops had MySQL in production, side-by-side with their Oracle databases.

Before news of the Oracle acquisition that was a positive for MySQL and for Sun against Oracle in its home territory. Today that's called a win-win for Oracle. Tomorrow, there will be tough questions over which database Oracle should be selling. The answer for Oracle will be the one that's proven to make money - and that will be Oracle in the enterprise and MySQL on the web and among systems partners. ®

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