Oracle MySQL 5.5 Release Candidate Gets Nods for Performance

At the Oracle OpenWorld conference, the MySQL 5.5 release candidate got high marks from some analysts for its performance enhancements.

Oracle's first release candidate for MySQL 5.5 received some solid reviews from analysts at Oracle OpenWorld.

The company pulled the covers off the release candidate at the conference Sept. 19 during its inaugural MySQL Sunday event. The emphasis in the release was on performance and scalability, two areas where analysts said customers will get what they are looking for.

"Although this release was long overdue, it met its objective on delivering performance," Forrester Research analyst Noel Yuhanna said Monday. "There were many large MySQL applications that were struggling with performance, and some were already looking at alternatives such as PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server and Ingres databases."

"I would say that at least a third of the MySQL community was awaiting the 5.5 release, so we will definitely see the upgrades happening sooner," he said.

By making InnoDB the default storage engine, Oracle has more control over performance, scalability and security, he added.

Gartner analyst Kenneth Chin counted the "merging of MySQL Server with InnoDB" among the key parts of the release. Inside InnoDB, Oracle has improved recovery performance, added the ability to enable multiple buffer pool instances and made a number of other enhancements as well in the name of scalability and performance.

"The most significant feature of the MySQL 5.5 release candidate is the improved scalability and performance of this product," he said. "The scalability and performance improvements will broaden the applications which can be supported by MySQL, including more business applications."

In a conversation with eWEEK in April, Edward Screven, Oracle's chief corporate architect, said the company's vision is to use MySQL to touch a portion of the market the Oracle Database does not reach. Still, Yuhanna said, more could be done to highlight the company's plans for the open-source database.

"Oracle is trying to make MySQL better by hiring more engineers, improve the quality and integrate with Oracle products," he noted. "However, on speaking to several large MySQL customers, many have been kept in dark with regard to the road map of MySQL. Many customers are having uncertainty over MySQL, whether they should extend their new applications on it or consider something else."