Whether MySQL is worth our choice of pros and cons five reasons

Open source database MySQL has developed to today has a very broad user base, some say it has a strong challenge to the traditional business database, and some say it has yet to prove itself in the corporate environment, and this article lists the five reasons why MySQL is worth our choice in both ways.

One, MySQL is worth our choice of the five major reasons

The most difficult part of enumerating the reasons for choosing MySQL is how to sort these reasons. It's like the story we often argue: chicken first or egg?

Does MySQL's low cost come from its simplicity? is its popularity due to its low cost? In fact, there is no obvious dividing line between the most "good" and "bad" features in MySQL, but they are grouped together to form a piece of work that we enjoy.

In any case, the market results have proven to be a cost-effective, flexible, widely used and well supported feature of MySQL. Here's a list of five top reasons MySQL deserves your choice.

1, the popularity of

People often say, "Success breeds success", this statement is obviously very suitable for MySQL situation. This Open-source database boasts more than 1.1 million complete installations worldwide. MySQL has gained 25% per cent of its market share in the past two years, according to a recent survey by the authoritative investigative agency, Evans Data Corp. The survey company also predicts that more and more developers will continue to choose MySQL compared to other open-source databases and closed-source databases. Evans's president, John Andrews, says users ' evaluations of MySQL and other Open-source databases are catching up with even more proprietary business database software.

Because the MySQL database has been so popular, it is undoubtedly a better choice for the enterprise.

The industry's popular voice says: "MySQL is a reliable database system, whether in the deployment of embedded or large cluster systems, or in web-based applications, users often find themselves not the first to choose a MySQL database pioneer." ”

Another benefit of MySQL's popularity in the industry is that people can easily find solutions to the industry. Vendors want their development tools and application frameworks to be compatible with MySQL databases 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, the rapid spread of the lamp portfolio largely represents the widespread acceptance of MySQL. "The use of MySQL will continue to grow in the future," according to Evans's survey. ”

2. Simple Nature

MySQL is easy to learn and easy to use compared to other databases.

You don't have to spend a lot of time and money training existing workers, or you can pay a large price to hire developers with a variety of certificates. Because MySQL's maintenance and management is largely "dummy", this leads directly to savings in human costs, says Mitch Pirtle, the CEO of MySQL's SpaceMonkey lab, who said: " Maintaining MySQL allows you to not need a 150,000-dollar DBA, and using it to develop programs is also very simple. ”

"There are plenty of powerful tools to choose from for MySQL databases, both in terms of development and support." Each novice developer can easily use the MySQL database for development. Even an experienced Windows administrator can easily deploy and start learning it, and you don't have to invest a penny to understand the database.

For IT managers, the simplicity of MySQL that they prefer is another. MySQL can run faster. Some people may say that MySQL lacks some of the features that people want, but the MySQL supporters believe that MySQL retains the essence of functionality and is essential for you to deploy, configure, and maintain the database.

"With a simple plan of a capable DBA, MySQL can run at an unimaginable speed," says one senior DBA. There is no extra functionality in MySQL to slow down the CPU or occupy memory. If you need additional functionality, the popularity of MySQL can actually make you realize that there is always a factory chamber that delivers accurate solutions that meet your needs and needs.

3. Low cost

MySQL database is owned by MySQL AB, but the software is open source and has a Community edition for free download. New beginners with a little common sense can easily implement MySQL on a common hardware. MySQL's low requirement for hardware is one of its biggest advantages, but it should be noted that the more memory the better, because all the important data storage is done in memory. A free database means that more valuable money can be used to start other businesses, such as marketing, advertising or research and development.

Even for MySQL's commercial Enterprise Edition, there is no high license cost, and when you compare it to a large proprietary business database like Oracle and Microsoft, you'll find that MySQL actually takes up less money, The cost per CPU license for the former typically ranges from 4000 to 25000 dollars, while the MySQL Enterprise version has lower support and maintenance costs, costing 2000 to 5000 dollars a year. Whether you're creating an emerging company from your own pocket or getting sponsorship from a venture capitalist, using MySQL can reduce the cost of human labor you need, as previously mentioned, MySQL is easy to learn, easy to deploy, easy to manage, and maintainable.

For existing businesses, you can easily migrate to MySQL. When you need to replace old hardware, when you need to cut the legacy of the old system, the use of MySQL for the financial department is more attractive. MySQL is deployed quickly, so the porting process does not cause production disruption. Moreover, a shorter learning curve allows your system administrator to quickly master its operation and maintenance. Also, the ease of maintenance and management of MySQL means that current staff can handle current work.

4, the Good support

MySQL's dual licensing model means that people who want to have extra control over the database can get help directly from the database vendor. MySQL AB offers support and maintenance services, such as code updates and patch patching services, with an annual subscription fee of about 3000 dollars. By paying a certain fee, customers can receive a priority of 24/7 support, access to content-rich online knowledgebase and contact a dedicated technical manager.

The free version of the user also has adequate support services. On Dev.mysql.com, a large and powerful community user and developer can discuss all the things about MySQL. The site has exchanges of blogs, guides, videos, technical exchanges, white papers and forums. Your problems may have been asked by someone else in the community, and even if not, you can ask questions or search for answers via Google. Responsible people in the community: "The MySQL community is active, friendly and knowledgeable." ”

5. Flexibility and Scalability

With so many additional features available in MySQL, such as storage engines, you can choose the one that works best for your company, or try multiple engines. MySQL starts very small, but it can grow stronger as the company grows. "This feature allows MySQL to adjust to the needs of your current system," says a senior developer at MySQL AB. ”

"MySQL is actually a database family, and you can choose one and configure it to meet most of your situation," says the managing director of Ethiqa, an Open-source consultancy, "So you can start by choosing a small version of the product, Expand the performance or size of it later, depending on your needs. ”

You can configure MySQL to run in tiny embedded applications that may be less 1mb--and you can use it to handle terabytes of data. One way MySQL obtains this scalability is through a well-known stored procedure, a miniature, precompiled program that runs outside of the program. These processes are stored and run on the database server to reduce processing on the client side, thereby maximizing processing power because the database server typically runs faster. Stored procedures are not unique to MySQL, but this newly added feature makes the database more appealing than ever.

MySQL is already ready to support all the most popular web 2.0 languages, such as Ruby, Ajax, and of course PHP. Some industry analysts say, "Every Web 2.0 company is essentially a database company." "Since MySQL is already a number of well-known Web 2.0 Web sites, including Craigslist, Digg, wikipedia, and Google, perhaps we can say that every Web 2.0 company is essentially a company that uses MySQL databases."

Ii. Five reasons not to use MySQL

In the course of our work, we often hear a lot of reasons not to use MySQL, although some of them are misconceptions about MySQL, but there are also some reasonable. I'll describe five loud reasons not to use MySQL.

First of all we need to know that there may be a number of reasons why we can choose to use it, but let us not use it often as long as there is a reason is enough. The same is true for choosing a software PRODUCT.

1, the way to authorize MySQL

MySQL uses a dual authorization (Dual licensed), which is a commercial license agreement made by the GPL and MySQL AB.

If you use MySQL in a free (open source) project that follows the GPL, you can use MySQL under the GPL protocol. However, if your project is not under the GPL, you must pay for license fees for use with MySQL, or you may change your project to the GPL for this reason, then you need to deal with the additional support work that would result, which could lead to cost improvements. In this case, some software publishers may prefer to choose other Open-source databases, such as following BSD-mandated PostgreSQL.

2. Maturity of product

By 2009, Oracle's database Oracle had been born 30 years, while MySQL did not even have half of its time. Microsoft's SQL Server is only two years older than MySQL, but the release of SQL Server is based on Sybase, where Sybase had been born for 6 years. As for other Open-source databases that are noteworthy, PostgreSQL will reach the 20 birthday in 2009. Although MySQL is not the youngest database on the market, there are more mature databases available for us to choose from.

Of course, this is probably not a compelling reason to reject MySQL, but for some of the more conservative IT managers, the maturity of the platform is a factor that must be considered when choosing a platform for some of the key businesses, and MySQL has no advantage at this point.

3, the function set up the mature sex

It's not easy to compare MySQL with other databases for an exhaustive set of features. With the release of a new version of the software or the introduction of some patches, the once functional list may quickly become obsolete. Also, some features are important for some applications, but not necessarily for other applications.

Sometimes, some missing features can be implemented by other means, for example, before MySQL 4.1, you can use the Join method to replace the function of the subquery. In MySQL 5.0, most relational databases require functionality already, but we have reason to doubt the maturity of these features in MySQL 5.0. At best they are supported in MySQL for a year or so, while in other relational databases they have been around for nearly 10 years.

4, the role of certification

Although MySQL also has a certified training program, it is far less likely to be trained than Oracle or MS-SQL. While some users of MySQL say MySQL is easy to get started with, for users with enterprise-class database requirements, there is no doubt that MySQL is not doing enough at this point to have a systematic, in-depth training.

A related issue is qualifying for third-party support, although it can be mitigated to some extent by direct vendor support and services, but it is clearly more attractive for some companies through strong localized support.

5. Views on scalability

I put it in the last one for this reason. There is a fairly consistent view among many industry experts that MySQL does not scale well. There may be considerable disagreement about this, and the focus of the debate is on horizontal scalability and vertical extensibility. MySQL is more inclined to vertical scalability.

As far as I can see, there is a tendency for the officially trained database administrator DBA to choose a proprietary relational database, such as Oracle. For some of the larger environments with specialized database administrators, MySQL is hard to dote on, and there is no point in arguing whether MySQL really has a good scalability.

It is undeniable that MySQL is also a good relational database, perhaps technically it and other leading relational database is not large, or not a disadvantage. However, for some enterprise environments, MySQL obviously does not have the advantage.