Latest MySQL release is underwhelming, say some DB experts
- Reference: 1721125989
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/07/16/mysql_9_underwhelms_community/
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Earlier this month, Oracle — which has long marketed its range of proprietary database systems — [1]published the 9.0 version as an "Innovation Release" of MySQL . MySQL 9.0 is now among the three iterations Oracle supports. The others include 8.0 (8.0.38) and the first update of the 8.4 LTS (8.4.1).
Warning on MySQL bug
Open source database consultancy Percona has warned users not to upgrade MySQL past 8.0.37, owing to a suspected bug.
Jean-François Gagné, an engineer at open source database DBaaS provider Aiven, spotted the issue and [2]posted that it was causing a cascading outage.
In [3]a blog post , Marco Tusa, Percona high availability practice manager, said the company had performed several tests and opened the [4]issue PS-9306 to investigate the problem.
"In short, what happens is that if you create a large number of tables, like 10,000, the mysql daemon will crash at restart," he said.
The bug is now private. The Register has asked Oracle to provide an update.
MySQL was originally developed by David Axmark and Michael Widenius, with the first release dating back to 1995. The founding Swedish company, MySQL AB, was bought by Sun Microsystems in [5]2008 , while Sun was itself subsumed by Oracle in 2009. Immediately after that takeover, Michael – or "Monty" – Widenius forked MySQL to launch MariaDB, hiring a group of the MySQL development team at the same time. MariaDB has since been publishing its MySQL iteration, particularly as a managed service DBaaS.
In June, Peter Zaitsev, an early MySQL engineer and founder of open source consultancy Percona, [6]said he feared the lack of features in MySQL was a result of Oracle’s focus on Heatwave, a proprietary analytics database built on MySQL. He had previously defended Oracle's stewardship of the open source database.
The release of MySQL 9.0 has not assuaged those concerns, said colleague Dave Stokes, Percona technology evangelist. It had not lived up to the previous 8.0 release, which arrived with many new features.
[7]
"MySQL 9.0 is supposed to be an 'innovation release' where [Oracle offers] access to the latest features and improvements and [users] enjoy staying on top of the latest technologies," he said.
[8]
[9]
However, he pointed out most more innovative features, such as vector support and embedded JavaScript store procedures, were not in the free MySQL Community Edition and were only available on the paid-for HeatWave edition. "The ability to store the output of an EXPLAIN command to a variable is not the level of new feature hoped for," he said.
The community had also hoped for incremental advancement in query parallelization, more potent query optimizations, or more items from the SQL standard to be included in the 9.0 release, but were left disappointed, he added.
[10]
The Register has invited Oracle to respond.
[11]Db2 is a story worth telling, even if IBM won't
[12]Nearly 20% of running Microsoft SQL Servers have passed end of support
[13]Early MySQL engineer questions whether Oracle is unintentionally killing off the open source database
[14]Father of SQL says yes to NoSQL
Carl Olofson, research vice president at IDC, told us that while it might be true Oracle focused on Heatwave rather than the MySQL, not all of the most innovative features would be appropriate for community edition.
"My reading of the situation is that the HeatWave innovations, particularly around the vector store and other GenAI features, are grounded in Oracle managed cloud-based system and storage deployment, and really could not be done otherwise. Oracle regards HeatWave as a build out of MySQL that provides extra benefits based on the direct Oracle implementation (such as AutoPilot). Those features could not be included in the MySQL project," he said in an emailed statement.
"It might be said that Oracle concentrates most new innovations on HeatWave rather than MySQL Community, and that seems fair, but to say those innovations could have been done in MySQL Community, deployed on any hardware, is probably not true. Oracle does have a variant available on AWS, but even there the software is deployed and run by Oracle staff," he added. ®
Get our [15]Tech Resources
[1] https://blogs.oracle.com/mysql/post/mysql-90-is-out-thank-you-for-your-contributions
[2] https://speakerdeck.com/jfg956/autopsy-of-a-cascading-outage-from-a-mysql-crashing-bug
[3] https://www.percona.com/blog/do-not-upgrade-to-any-version-of-mysql-after-8-0-37/
[4] https://perconadev.atlassian.net/browse/PS-9306
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2008/01/16/sun_buys_mysql/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/11/early_mysql_engineer_questions_whether/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/databases&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZpaZG-kkjl4jixvUPC07AAAAAgE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/databases&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZpaZG-kkjl4jixvUPC07AAAAAgE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/databases&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZpaZG-kkjl4jixvUPC07AAAAAgE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/databases&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZpaZG-kkjl4jixvUPC07AAAAAgE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/04/db2_a_story_worth_telling/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/17/outdated_sql_server/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/11/early_mysql_engineer_questions_whether/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/10/sql_cocreator_nosql/
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
I think Oracle's version of MySQL probably suits many paying customers more than what was previously on offer and I think many of them prefer support over new features.
Is there any reason to choose MySQL or MariaDB over PostgreSQL these days?
Previously, PostgreSQL offered better features, MySQL had better performance and a feature-set that was good enough for many use-cases.
Now, PostgreSQL is faster and offers better features. So even if you don't need the additional features, you still get the performance benefits, and you might grow into the additional feature-set later.
For new projects PostgreSQL is the obvious choice. More features, better performance, excellent community and consultant support.
The problem is existing systems where people have used misfeatures in MySQL. Then the best you can do is switch to MariaDB and hope the company behind it stays in business.
I'm currently porting a set of applications from MariaDB to PostgreSQL. Things like case insensitivity in MariaDB and my predecessors' love of the SET column type are the biggest issues.
Isn't the MySQL licensing scheme pretty tortuous as well?
I'd quibble the assertion that MySQL offered better performance: it certainly offered better write performance but did this largely by not being ACID compliant, which can quickly cost a lot more. But schema changes and many queries led to table-locks and absolutely dreadful performance. To be fair, MySQL was never designed to be a relational system and did what it was supposed to well. The real problems started when people tried to use MySQL where a real RDBMS would have made more sense. This has helped engender a generation of poor systems and practices around a fundamental misunderstanding of how relations work.
If you need to support a MySQL based application you install MariaDB.
If you want a feature-rich SQL server for a new project then PostgreSQL becomes a valid option depending on the skill sets you have access to.
The choice becomes harder if you are designing around the need for high-availability replication - at this point, you hire an expert for either PostgresSQL or MariaDB and forget about MySQL.
MySQL is simply "Oracle Lite"* , a way for Oracle to entice enterprises with some cash to trade in their FOSS kit in favour of a "proper" RDBMS as Oracle would see it. Don't fall for it, you're way better off investing into PostgreSQL. I have no real beef with MySQL or Maria but something about Postrges that just makes it feel like a solid system when you use it.
* as a 25 years veteran DBA, I know there was a product called "Oracle Lite" many moons ago, used to run on Palm Pilot if I remember correctly.