MySQL has released a souped up, heavy-duty, SAP-certified open source database that offers high availability, scalability and a comprehensive feature set for enterprise-level functionality that MySQL’s flagship database lacks (triggers, stored procedures, and the like)
MySQL had already announced a partnership with SAP earlier this year. Now Business Wire reports that MySQL has finally formally launched MaxDB as the first souped-up, enhanced version of the SAP’s open source DB.
Phew, indeed. Now the naysayers of MySQL, who usually denounce it based on its lack of enterprise class features such as triggers, stored procedures etc, or its somewhat sluggish full-text searches (especially on millions of rows), have something to chew on.
MySQL is not a state-of-the-art RDBMS, contrary to what the hype would have you believe, but it kicks ass if you know its limitations. Due to its light-weight moorings, it’s best used in applications and electronics devices, without end-users having much awareness of the underlying database. An embedded MySQL database is ideal for use behind the scenes in Internet appliances, public kiosks, turn-key hardware/software combination units, high performance Internet servers and self-contained databases distributed on CD-ROM.
But with this release of the first fruit from its partnership with SAP DB, I’m not sure how MySQL intends to further the Version 5 of its flagship namesake product, which was targeted at the enterprise market anyway and was to include a lot of such functionality, not the least of which was stored procedures, replication etc.
Well, two parallel paths of development for powerful, robust yet solid code cannot be all that bad. MySQL says on its main MaxDB page:
With PostgreSQL 7.4 recently released (detailed changelog here) and Firebird 1.5 getting very close, the open source relational database market is getting pretty interesting. Both of them have less restrictive licenses for commercial close-source application developers, but perhaps neither has the popularity and momentum behind MySQL.
From your perspective and mine, the best thing about all this: since SAP DB itself was an open source database already, you can download MaxDB for free as well and play around with it! As Mike Hillyer said: More power to the dolphin!
3 Comments
if you download maxdb the installation docs are here;
http://www.mysql.com/documentation/maxdb/default.htm
There is some interesting Q&A on TechTarget:
http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci937988,00.html?track=NL-76
The questions I have are:
1. Will MySQL “integrate” MaxDB and its flagship database? AFAIK they are two very different databases. MaxDB is just a marketing job on the SAP database.
2. What now happens to MySQL users, and their enterprise dreams? Especially given that the licensing is different?
As far as I’m aware, MAXDB is completely different from MySQL, although it’s sold by the same company. It’s basically SAP’s DB, which is really
just a fork off of Adabas D, which has been a mainframe database for a long time.
So, it really has nothing to do with MySQL, just the MySQL company.
I looked into SAPDB once a long time ago. It has several good features, including:
* Oracle 7 compatibility mode
* Several data warehousing enhancements
* My favorite – TABLESPACES!!
It was near impossible to install, but seemed to work a lot like Oracle. Just my impression. Again, this has nothing to do with the MySQL product.
Jon