How MySQL Powers Web 2.

0
An overview of how MySQL helps power
Web 2.0 technologies and companies

A MySQL® Technical White Paper

August 2006

Copyright © 2006, MySQL AB

All logos are trademarks of their respective companies

 Table of Contents
Executive Summary....................................................................................................................4

What is Web 2.0? ........................................................................................................................4

Characteristics and Core Competencies...................................................................................................................5
The Web is the Platform............................................................................................................................................6
An Architecture of Participation .................................................................................................................................7
O’Reilly’s Hierarchy of “Web 2.0-ness” .....................................................................................................................7

MySQL & Web 2.0 Applications.................................................................................................8

Virtual/Online Communities & Worlds .......................................................................................................................8
Linden Labs/Second Life and MySQL ...................................................................................................................9
Additional Characteristics ......................................................................................................................................9
Web Syndication & Feeds .........................................................................................................................................9
FeedBurner and MySQL......................................................................................................................................10
Additional Characteristics ....................................................................................................................................10
Blogs........................................................................................................................................................................10
LiveJournal and MySQL ......................................................................................................................................11
Additional Characteristics ....................................................................................................................................11
Social Networking....................................................................................................................................................11
Mixi.jp and MySQL...............................................................................................................................................12
Additional Characteristics ..............................................................................................................................12
Wikis ........................................................................................................................................................................12
Wikipedia and MySQL .........................................................................................................................................12
Additional Characteristics ....................................................................................................................................13
Customized and Advanced Meta Search Engines..................................................................................................13
Technorati and MySQL........................................................................................................................................13
Additional Characteristics ....................................................................................................................................14
File, Image & Video Sharing ...................................................................................................................................14
Flickr and MySQL ................................................................................................................................................14
Additional Characteristics ....................................................................................................................................15
Online Gaming ........................................................................................................................................................15
PokerRoom.com and MySQL..............................................................................................................................15
Additional Characteristics ....................................................................................................................................16

Technology Requirements of Web 2.0....................................................................................16

The Benefits of Community & Open Source ...........................................................................................................16
Linux ........................................................................................................................................................................17
Apache ....................................................................................................................................................................17
MySQL.....................................................................................................................................................................17
PHP, Perl and Python .............................................................................................................................................18
Ruby on Rails ..........................................................................................................................................................18
Ajax..........................................................................................................................................................................19
memcached.............................................................................................................................................................19

How MySQL Powers Web 2.0 ..................................................................................................20

“Fail Fast – Scale Fast” ...........................................................................................................................................20
Scale Out vs. Scale Up ...........................................................................................................................................20
MySQL Replication..................................................................................................................................................21

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 MySQL Cluster for High Availability ........................................................................................................................22
MySQL Query Cache ..............................................................................................................................................24
Pluggable Storage Engine Architecture ..................................................................................................................25
10 Reasons to Choose MySQL for Web 2.0 Applications ......................................................................................26

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................27

About MySQL ............................................................................................................................28

Additional MySQL & Web 2.0 Resources ...............................................................................28

MySQL and Web 2.0 Portal.....................................................................................................................................28
Web 2.0 Articles ......................................................................................................................................................28
White Papers ...........................................................................................................................................................29
Case Studies ...........................................................................................................................................................29
Press Releases, News and Events .........................................................................................................................29
Live Webinars..........................................................................................................................................................29
Webinars on Demand..............................................................................................................................................29

Copyright © 2006, MySQL AB Page 3 of 29

 Executive Summary
The Internet continues to evolve at an accelerated rate, with new technological innovations being
introduced all the time. These changes are manifesting themselves in hardware computing power,
software versatility and networking speeds. This is constantly forcing us to rethink not only how we
currently use the web, but also in what new possibilities lie in the future. The rapid adoption in which
these new technologies and services are being integrated into our lives, are dramatically changing the
way we communicate, socialize, share and locate information, entertain ourselves and shop for goods
and services. It also creates unique opportunities (and challenges) for companies and organizations on
how to best leverage these innovations. This rapidly evolving landscape of “next generation” technologies
and companies, are being categorized as “Web 2.0”.

Because these applications predominately “live” online, a strong collaborative and collective nature is
being harnessed. Where the web was once a static and passively consumed experience, it is now
dynamic, transactional and interactive, where participation is not optional, it is mandatory.

The companies that are delivering these applications and services are taking advantage of the lowered
market entry points, by making full use of the benefits of open source software running on commodity-off-
the-shelf hardware. This has allowed Web 2.0 companies to meet their capacity and performance
requirements, incrementally over time. It is no surprise a common characteristic of many Web 2.0
websites, applications and companies, is their use of the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl &
Python) open source stack. This allows fast-growing sites to deliver performance, scalability and reliability
to millions of users at a fraction of the cost of proprietary databases. MySQL enables up-and-coming Web
2.0 sites like Wikipedia, FeedBurner and digg, - as well as established web properties like Craigslist,
Google and Yahoo! - to scale out and meet the ever-increasing volume of users, transactions and data.

The information presented here will be valuable to entrepreneurs about to create their own Web 2.0
business, existing web properties wishing to bring their applications to the next level, but also to the large
number of enterprises interested in leveraging Web 2.0 technologies. You will also gain an understanding
of how MySQL can be used in conjunction with other open source components to deliver low-cost,
reliable, scalable, high performance Web 2.0 applications.

What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 can generally be thought of as the technologies and web sites who leverage users and
developers in a socially collaborative manner in order to rapidly develop data and applications with a high
level of integration across platforms and other services.

The term “Web 2.0” was first coined back in 2004 during a brainstorming session between Tim O’Reilly of
O’Reilly Media and MediaLive International, a company which puts on technology tradeshows. The term
was originally intended for use as the name to describe an upcoming conference showcasing new web-
based companies and technologies that had emerged post dot-com bubble. The term “Web 2.0” has
since been dismissed as a marketing buzzword, co-opted and validated several times over by various
individuals and companies. It has typically been used as a way to describe the new technologies and
companies that are revolutionizing the way we use and think about the World Wide Web.
Tim O’Reilly expands further on the definition of the term, in his article “What is Web 2.0”, September 30,
2005:

“Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that
platform: delivering software as a continually updated service that gets better the more
people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual

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 users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing others,
creating network effects through an “architecture of participation” and going beyond the
page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.”

In the following sections we delve deeper into four ideas central to the discussion of Web 2.0, which
O’Reilly and others have elaborated on since the initial emergence of the term. They include:

• Characteristics and Core Competencies of Web 2.0

• The Web is the Platform
• An Architecture of Participation
• Hierarchy of “Web 2.0-ness”

Characteristics and Core Competencies

O’Reilly names the seven characteristics and core competencies of Web 2.0 companies in his article,
“What is Web 2.0”, September 30, 2005 and we elaborate on them in this section.

“They should be in the business of providing services not packaged software, while enabling cost
effective scalability.” A key component here is the frequency in which Web 2.0 companies leverage
MySQL Replication in a “scale-out” configuration. Scale-out enables the use of low-cost commodity
servers to increase database performance and scalability, incrementally, at a fraction of the price of
traditional “fork-lift” or “scale-up” methods. This capability is critical for companies who experience
explosive growth and adoption in very short time frames.

“They should also exercise control over unique, difficult to replicate data sources which get richer
the more individuals use and contribute to them.” A site might include a database of customer
reviews and recommendations on products. You could imagine the difficulty of attempting to recreate all
the unique, varied, and unbiased opinions you may find on a particular product. A site like Amazon’s
“Customer’s Reviews” is an everyday example. They “control” the data of customer reviews, which would
be difficult to replicate that without the same customer traffic and level of participation Amazon’s
customers engage in. Another similar use can be found in eBay’s “Seller Ratings”. For many companies,
this competency revolves around controlling data that for competitors is prohibitive to replicate due to the
licensing costs from private data providers or an inability to engage users to “create” the data.

“Trusting users as co-developers.” This concept revolves around the idea that the users are actively
assisting in various capacities in the development process of the application. To some degree, this is not
a new concept. The open source community has relied on this model of active contribution since its
inception. More specifically, the users and development community are active participants in the
development, testing, requesting of enhancements and reporting of bugs. Even companies that offer
applications which are not “open source” have employed this methodology. This can manifest itself by the
introduction of new functionality in an accelerated manner which mimics the open source community’s
“release early, release often” development model. It can also be accomplished by monitoring the usage
patterns of users in order to gather intelligence on what functionality is being used and creating value,
and which functionality is not.

By adopting the development state of being “in perpetual beta”, it allows a company to be more
responsive in the adoption of new technologies and usage patterns. They also become more adaptable to
changing business conditions. An example of an application still in “beta” yet with a large user base
actively using and contributing either actively or passively, is Google’s Gmail application.

“Harnessing collective intelligence.” “Collective Intelligence” refers to the level participation a website
reaches when the users themselves are actively deciding what is important and provides value to them.
Websites which offer product reviews allow the users amongst themselves to rate products which present

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 a good value and those that do not. Other examples include Wikipedia where the users are charged with
creating and policing data on the system. But also any site which leverages “tags” created by the users
themselves to help aggregate and locate relevant data. The idea of collective intelligence can be applied
to just about any system where the users of the system have been empowered to decide what is
important or accurate and what is not.

“Leveraging the long tail through customer self service.” The “long tail” was first coined by Chris
Anderson in a 2004 Wired Magazine article to describe certain business and economic models such as
Amazon.com or Netflix. The point being made was that customer self-service can be leveraged with
effective data management in order to offer goods and services which appeal to users outside the
mainstream. The belief is that the aggregate of all these non-mainstream users is much larger then the
mainstream users. For example, online booksellers and DVD rental sites draw a significant portion of their
revenue from titles that have long disappeared from the general public’s radar. Another example can be
seen in the gaining popularity of music trading sites like LaLa.com, whose business revolves around
bringing “like-minded” individuals to trade music amongst themselves, regardless if their tastes fall well
outside the mainstream.

It could be argued that this isn’t necessarily a new concept, as many traditional booksellers, video rental
and music stores can attest to the fact that a significant portion of their business stems from music
albums which have long disappeared from the charts, movies which have not screened in a theatre for
years or books by authors who have long since fallen out of favor with the general public. Web 2.0
companies have realized that their applications must be designed to serve not only popular tastes but
also the interests of those on the fringes.

“Software above the level of a single device.” The portability of data and the access to it is something
Web 2.0 applications must attempt to adhere to. Users are coming to expect that their data can be
accessed and synchronized across many devices, such as MP3 players, PDAs, cell phones, kiosks and
more traditional computing mediums like workstations and laptops. This data must be especially
indifferent to the hardware or operating system platforms on which is to be accessed.

“Lightweight user interfaces, development models, AND business models.” On this point, the
interfaces which users use to access data must be “lightweight” and highly portable, but still capable
delivering a rich end user experience. The use of programming techniques and methodologies like Ajax
and Ruby on Rails can be thought of in this respect. Using commodity off-the-shelf hardware, open
source software and leveraging development communities and users for testing, allow Web 2.0
companies to enter established markets or create new markets at lower costs. It also allows their
applications to be in “perpetual beta”, constantly adapting to the changes conditions of the marketplace
and needs of end users.

The Web is the Platform

The Web has become “the destination where it all happens”. The exchange and distribution of ideas, how
we socialize, conduct business, work, and play is increasingly finding its way on to the Web. In some
cases it has become the primary way in which many particular interactions are now conducted. Of course,
at the heart of these interactions are the people, applications and the data that drive them.

Not many years ago it would have been hard to imagine the Web as a strategically important platform for
many of the things that are now common place, like trading stocks, booking travel, conducting commerce,
bartering for goods and services, finding new/old friends or even a potential life mate. This perception
was often due to the fact that the applications making use of the web as a platform, were often sluggish,
had few security controls, were graphically uninteresting, or were held captive by the speed of the end-
users internet connection. When comparing these characteristics against the existing desktop

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 applications of the day, it is no wonder some people found it hard to imagine that the web could ever be
considered a viable platform over the desktop.

Fast forward a few years and web applications are now beginning to provide close to if not better end-
user experiences. Email is a good example of an application originally relegated to the desktop if you
wanted any advanced features. It is now an application that can be accessed over the web, from
essentially anywhere in the world with an internet connection, with minimal loss in functionality over a
desktop client. In some cases, there is even increased functionality, like portability, if we include
accessing email over a PDA or cell phone. Plus advanced search capabilities, contact sharing between
devices, no need for local backups and almost unlimited “theoretical” storage capacity. A similar trend is
well under way as it relates to spreadsheets, word processing and calendaring.

The evolution we are witnessing is that of the web quickly becoming the next “desktop”, or more
specifically, the next operating platform on which applications are being designed to run on exclusively.

An Architecture of Participation
The concept of “an architecture of participation” is typically used to describe companies, technologies and
projects, intentionally designed for contribution from developer communities and individual users with an
emphasis on empowerment and openness. Often times this concept is closely linked to open source
projects and companies.

It may be worth noting that a technology or company that is open source does not necessarily mean it
automatically exhibits “an architecture of participation”. However, it is often much easier for open source
companies and projects, as they will likely have a devout and often vibrant developer community. Many
times proprietary products find it difficult to cultivate a participatory quality without heavy subsidization.
This can be further complicated if the source code is closed, or the exposed APIs are complex, making
even peripheral contributions difficult.

A “release early and release often” development cycle, characteristic of open source software, is an
excellent way to include a community of volunteers and parties with vested interests in the software, to
test and help debug code. Often the introduction of new features is done in strategic locations on a
website or within an application to help ascertain its popularity or usability. This helps developers
understand if the feature should be more widely employed and enhanced, or abandoned all together.

“An architecture of participation” also relates to the idea of users creating meaningful and valuable data
for themselves. Often times the application simply provides the framework and tools to empower users in
this capacity. A practical manifestation of this may include seller ratings, user recommendations and
restaurant reviews.

Some examples of applications which typify this concept include:

Feeds: Users and applications allow their content to be picked up for distribution to subscribers
Blogs: Users create site content and drive traffic
Social Networking: Users create site content and through their social channels to build a network
Wikis: Users contribute articles and manage the content for accuracy and relevance

O’Reilly’s Hierarchy of “Web 2.0-ness”

O’Reilly also articulated a “hierarchy” of degrees to which an application possesses or typifies Web 2.0
attributes. They can be found in his article, “Levels of the Game: The Hierarchy of Web 2.0 Applications”
July 17, 2006, and we also elaborate on them here.

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 “Level 3: Could ONLY exist on the Web and draws its essential power from the network and the
connections it makes possible between people and applications.” These applications are
characterized as those who require the collective online activity of users in order for the application to
become more valuable. Examples in this regard include eBay’s “seller ratings”, Wikipedia’s articles and
del.icio.us’s aggregation of tags and sharing of bookmarks. The larger the network of users which
contribute or depend on the data, the more valuable it becomes.

“Level 2: Could exist offline, but has unique advantages by being online.” An example in this case
could be found among photo sharing applications. Unlike desktop photo management applications like
Adobe Photoshop Album or Google’s Picasa, online applications like Flickr, gain unique advantages by
being online. Specifically, by their ability to share images publicly with other users. Plus, their ability to
then be indexed and searched for online via the use of tags and other metadata characteristics.

“Level 1: Can and does exist offline, but gains additional functionality by being online.” This level
can be usually assigned to productivity applications which sometimes benefit from collaboration. O’Reilly
uses the example of Writely in this case. He points out that his word processing application can be used
offline when remarks or comments are not required from others (as is true in the vast majority of cases).
But when collaborative editing and review is required, its online attributes make it much more efficient and
effective then trying to reconcile the markups from multiple reviewers on the same document, individually.
This same idea can be expanded to calendaring software as well. Unless, the calendar needs to be
viewed, edited or shared by others, outside of the ability to access it online, there is little advantage.

“Level 0: The application has primarily taken hold online, but it would work just as well offline if
you had all the data in a local cache.” This of course is prohibitive in many cases based on the amount
of data that may be required or if the data is licensed or proprietary. O’Reilly’s examples include,
MapQuest, Yahoo! Local, and Google Maps.

MySQL & Web 2.0 Applications

In this section we explore some Web 2.0 applications and the companies delivering them. We also
highlight how MySQL is being leveraged in each scenario.

Virtual/Online Communities & Worlds

A virtual/online community or world, sometimes referred to as a “virtual reality”, is a group of people who
gather and communicate on the web, often through virtual identities. “Inhabiting” these worlds is typically
done for recreational and entertainment purposes. The companies which host virtual communities and
worlds make extensive use of Web 2.0 technologies and business models. Communication features like
instant messaging, forums, and email are typically offered by these sites in order to foster inter-
communication amongst its members. Software tools which permit a high level of customization and
personalization of these identities are also made available. These virtual communities depend upon a
high-level of social interaction and participation among its members in order to function, but also to
remain dynamic and grow. Although typically moderated, especially those communities where children
congregate, other communities allow the bulk of the moderating to be done by the users themselves.
Therefore empowering the end users to decide was acceptable and worth while.

Popular examples of virtual/online communities include:

Habbo Hotel, Neopets, Linden Labs (Second Life), and Cyworld.

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 Linden Labs/Second Life and MySQL
Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in
2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by 370,997 people from around the globe. The
Second Life "world" is hosted on servers that are owned and maintained by Linden Lab. Second Life
provides users with tools to interact and modify the virtual world they inhabit. A vast majority of the
content in the Second Life world is created by the users themselves. Because of the empowerment and
high degree of participation amongst its users, the Second Life world is comprised of many rich and
diverse cultures. It is also worth noting that Linden Lab’s actively encourages users to retain the
intellectual property rights to any objects they create within the Second Life world.

Additional Characteristics

• Business is growing over 20% per month

• Expected to have anywhere from 1 to over 3 million users by 2007
• At peak times 5000-5500 users working in parallel
• Over 1100 servers and about 2000 CPUs to support the “virtual world”
• Actively replacing several proprietary portions of Second Life with open-source technologies
• MySQL used to manage user accounts, inventories and presence information
• High data storage and performance requirements
• Technology Stack: Debian Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl/Python and Ruby on Rails

For more information about Linden Labs/Second Life and MySQL please see:

Interview with Ian Wilkes, Director of Operations at Linden Labs

http://dev.mysql.com/tech-resources/interviews/ian-wilkes-linden-lab.html

My Second Life Runs on MySQL: War Stories from the Metaverse

http://mysqluc.com/presentations/mysql06/wilkes_ian.pdf

Web Syndication & Feeds

A web “feed” is typically an XML-based document which contains content items, often summaries of
stories or blog posts with web links to longer versions. News websites, blogs and podcasts are common
sources for these feeds, but they are also used to deliver structured information like current weather data.
RSS and Atom are currently the two main web feed formats.

Web syndication can be used to describe the function of making an information source, such as a blog
available for feed distribution. It is very similar to other syndicated media like television and radio
programs or news stories distributed over “the wire”. Likewise the contents of a web feed may be shared
and posted by other web sites.

Feeds are typically subscribed to directly by users using aggregators or feed readers, which combine the
contents of multiple web feeds for presentation. Subscription to a feed is typically done by manually
entering the URL of a feed or by clicking a link on the page.

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 Because web feeds are designed to be machine-readable rather than human-readable, they can also be
leveraged to automatically transfer information from one website to another, without any human
intervention.

Popular examples of Web Syndication, Feed Management, Feed Aggregator sites and readers include:

FeedBurner, digg, Feedster, MyYahoo!, and Google Reader.

FeedBurner and MySQL

FeedBurner is the world's largest feed management provider. Their Web-based services help bloggers,
podcasters and commercial publishers promote, deliver and profit from their content on the Web.
FeedBurner also offers the largest advertising network for feeds that brings together an unprecedented
caliber of content aggregated from the world's leading media companies, A-list bloggers and blog
networks and individual publishers.

Additional Characteristics

• Provides services for over 170,000 bloggers, podcasters and publishers

• Handles over 270,000 feeds
• 1 million hits per day
• 11 million subscribers in 190 countries
• MySQL Replication for Scale-Out leveraged for reads and snapshot backups
• Query Cache leveraged in this very high-read environment

For more information about FeedBurner and MySQL please see:

FeedBurner: Scalable Web Applications Using MySQL and Java

http://www.mysqluc.com/cs/mysqluc2006/view/e_sess/8099

Blogs
Weblogs or Blogs as they are more commonly referred to are personal websites in a journal or diary
format. Text, images, videos and files make up the majority of the content on blogs. They typically allow
visitors to post comments and other messages in response to the bloggers posts. “Pingback” and
“trackbacks” can be leveraged so that conversations spanning several blogs can be easily traversed or
navigated by readers attempting to follow an exchange.

It is vital for blog building applications and blog hosting sites that the database(s) they leverage are:

• Easy to Use: For administrators and end-users if they must interact directly with database.
• Reliable: Many users may depend on the service to be available round the clock.

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 • Scalable: Blogging is incredibly popular and is experiencing explosive growth. The sheer amount
of data coupled with the varying formats of the data, including text, video, audio and image files
put additional demands on the database

Popular examples of blog websites include:

LiveJournal, Blogger, MySpace, and Wordpress.com.

LiveJournal and MySQL

LiveJournal is a simple-to-use communication tool that lets you express yourself and connect with friends
online. You can use LiveJournal in many different ways: as a private journal, a blog, a social network and
much more.

Additional Characteristics

• InnoDB for transactions

• MyISAM for logging and static data for fast reads
• MySQL Replication for Scale Out
• Technology Stack: Debian Linux, MySQL, F5 Load Balancing, mod_perl, memcached

For more information about LiveJournal and MySQL please see:

Inside LiveJournal’s Backend

http://www.danga.com/words/2004_mysqlcon/mysql-slides.pdf

LiveJournal’s Backend: A History of Scaling

http://mysqluc.com/cs/mysqluc2005/view/e_sess/6257

Social Networking
Social networking websites enable users to socialize online based on common interests or causes. These
sites normally offer an interactive, user-submitted network of blogs, profiles, groups, photos, MP3s,
videos and even internal e-mail or messaging systems. It is estimated that there are currently well over
300 hosted social networking websites on the internet.

Popular examples of social networking sites include:

MySpace, Friendster, and Mixi.jp

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 Mixi.jp and MySQL
Mixi is the largest social networking site in Japan. Members can create diaries, share photos, post
messages, and participate in discussions.

Additional Characteristics
“MySQL delivered the right
• More then 100 MySQL Servers in production balance of features,
• About 10 additional servers are being added every month reliability, performance and
• Explosive growth: 3.7 million users signed up within the first 3 scalability, making MySQL
years a perfect fit for scaling-out
• Dynamic: 70% are active users (less the 72 hours since last login) our system.”
• Technology Stack: Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl and memcached
• MySQL Replication for Scale-Out
• MySQL leveraged to store meta-data about stored images Batara Kesuma
CTO
For more information about Mixi.jp and MySQL please see: mixi, inc
Mixi Delivers Massive Scale-Out with MySQL
http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/case-studies/mysql-cs-mixi

Mixi.jp: Scaling Out with Open Source,

http://mysqluc.com/cs/mysqluc2005/view/e_sess/6257

Wikis
A wiki is a type of site that permits users to easily add, remove and edit content on wiki pages within the
web browser without having to know HTML. Wikis also have built-in tools for discussing, tracking and
implementing changes to content. This is critical when erroneous or incorrect information is posted and
needs to be resolved and then corrected. The high level of interaction and empowerment it gives users
makes it an excellent tool for projects which require high degrees of collaboration. Another interesting
characteristic about wikis is that they generally do not maintain any sort of access restrictions, or if they
do, they tend to be quite minimal. Wikis are commonly used for both public and private project
communication, intranets, documentation and knowledge bases.

Popular examples of public Wiki sites include:

Wikipedia, WikiWikiWeb, Wikitravel, World66, and Susning.nu.

Wikipedia and MySQL

Wikipedia is the most popular Wiki site on the internet. It is a free encyclopedia built collaboratively by the
general public using Wiki software. From the Wikipedia website, co-founder Jimmy Wales has described

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 Wikipedia as "an effort to create and distribute a multilingual free encyclopedia of the highest possible
quality to every single person on the planet in their own language."

Additional Characteristics

• The site receives over 3000 page views per second

• In turn, over 25,000 SQL requests are issued per second
• Technology Stack: Linux, Apache, MySQL, memcached and PHP
• Data is aggregated, compressed, many times duplicated and replicated
• Reliability and availability are key database concerns
• MySQL Replication for Scale-Out
• Low Cost: Despite being in the top 20 of the most heavily trafficked sites in the world, it relies on
donations to stay up and running. This requires the flexibility to deliver performance
and scalability on COTS hardware components.

For more information about Wikipedia and MySQL please see:

Wikipedia, MySQL and Free Software

http://mysqluc.com/cs/mysqluc2005/view/e_sess/6179
Wikipedia: Cheap and Explosive Scaling with LAMP
http://mysqluc.com/presentations/mysql06/mituzas_wikipedia.pdf

Customized and Advanced Meta Search Engines

This group of Web 2.0 applications include specialized search engines that can crawl, index and return
results about relevant blogs, photos, podcasts, videos, personal media, and classified postings. In
general, this is the area of the web where one of the largest challenges revolves around the ability to
manage the sheer volume of new data constantly being created. Often “mashup” techniques are
leveraged to search various data sources and unite them into one comprehensive view.

• Millions of users leverage these search engines either explicitly or through services
• Hundreds of millions of new posts are created every day
• This creates billions of hyperlinks
• In turn, there is a constant expansion of data, meta-data and relationships created every minute

Popular examples of customized and advanced meta search sites include:

Craigslist, Feedster, Technorati, and Trulia

craigslist

Technorati and MySQL

Technorati is the world’s leading search engine of weblogs. Their services help individuals search and
organize bloggers and their content and posts. Technorati also tracks other forms of media, including
video blogs, podcasts, and movies and videos in real time. All this online activity is monitored and
indexed within minutes of posting. Technorati provides a real-time view into the global conversation of the
web, helping end-users locate what is interesting, topical, or entertaining to them, as it happens.

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 According to Technorati’s data:

• About 75,000 new blogs appear each day

• About 1.2 million new blog posts every day, or about 50,000 updates an hour
• Technorati tracks over 50 million blogs and counting

Additional Characteristics

• Data accumulation is done in real time

• Data continues to grow exponentially
• Data is being queried intensively for up to the minute results
• New tag data tops almost 600,000 a day and increases every day
• MySQL Replication for Scale Out and asynchronous calculations
• An interoperable open source technology stack
• Ability to deliver a lower cost development and business model

For more information about Technorati and MySQL please see:

Technorati: Scaling the Real Time Web

http://mysqluc.com/presentations/mysql06/carroll_dorion.ppt

File, Image & Video Sharing “The exponential growth of

our PhotoShow platform
File, image and video sharing sites and the online community which develops demands systems that
around them are considered excellent examples of Web 2.0 applications. scale rapidly and cost-
These web sites provide users an easy and collaborative way share personal effectively. MySQL provides
photographs, videos and files. These types of services are commonly used by the mission-critical, high-
bloggers as an easy way to store and manage their online images. Many of volume systems that
these sites popularity derive from the online community tools they provide uniquely meet our needs.”
which allow content to be tagged and browsed using a folksonomy.

Popular examples of file, image and video sharing sites include:

Mike Edmunds
CEO
Flickr, YouTube, SmugMug, Snapfish, and SimpleStar SimpleStar

Flickr and MySQL

Flickr is a digital photo sharing website and web services suite, and an online community platform. Flickr
allows photo submitters to categorize their images by use of keyword "tags" (a form of metadata), which
allow searchers to easily find images concerning a certain topic such as place name or subject matter.
Flickr provides rapid access to images tagged with the most popular keywords. Because of its support for
user-generated tags, Flickr repeatedly has been cited as a prime example of effective use of folksonomy.
Also, Flickr was one of the first websites to implement tag clouds.

Flickr also allows users to categorize their photos into "sets", or groups of photos that fall under the same
heading. However, sets are more flexible than the traditional folder-based method of organizing files, as

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 one photo can belong to many sets, or one set, or none at all. Flickr's "sets", then, represent a form of
categorical metadata rather than a physical hierarchy.

Additional Characteristics

• Technology Stack: RedHat Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl, and Java
• Over 25,0000 transactions per second at peak times
• MySQL Replication for Scale Out
• Full Text search

For more information about Flickr and MySQL please see:

Flickr and PHP

http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/uploads/flickr_php.pdf

Online Gaming
Online gaming can be broken down into roughly two main categories, those which involving wagering and
those which do not. Non-wagering games are typically known as massively multiplayer online games
(MMOG). This year, DFC Intelligence sized the online gaming market at about $3.4 billion, with growth
expected to exceed $13 billion by 2011. Curiously, MMOG are expected to remain the leading game
category, despite appealing to a smaller segment of players. One of the Web 2.0 competencies that
MMOG companies employ is the reliance on online channels in order to deliver their gaming services.
This allows them to adopt a business model that relies on subscriptions rather then shrink-wrapped
products on retail shelves. Their business models also exist 100% online and often make use of the “long
tail” of customer self-service, creating many games and offering almost limitless customization options.
MMOGs are incredibly popular and are experiencing unprecedented growth, with several of the top
games having millions of subscribers.
Popular examples of online gaming sites include:

Mythic Entertainment (Dark Age of Camelot), Ongame (PokerRoom.com), SimDynasty, and

TombRaiderChronicles.

Sim Dynasty

PokerRoom.com and MySQL

Ongame’s PokerRoom.com is one of the largest poker sites online. During “When growing at our
peak hours, 12,000 plus players occupy poker tables playing over 2 million speed, it’s essential that
hands of poker a day. Since each bet, played hand and needs to be
tools are easy to use, since
recorded, the database is required to handle up 2,000 transactions per
there simply isn’t time to
second. This means well over 100 million queries are being issued to a
back for three months and
MySQL database. The database is comprised of more then 300 tables
carefully make design
holding upwards of 20 gigabytes of data. The largest table, which logs played
poker hands contains over 30 million rows of data. changes.”

Anders Thor
DBA
Ongame

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 Additional Characteristics

• Technology Stack: RedHat Linux and MySQL

For more information about PokerRoom.com and MySQL please see:

PokerRoom.com Powers High Transaction Online Poker System with MySQL and HP
http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/case-studies/mysql-hp-ongame-casestudy.pdf

Technology Requirements of Web 2.0

Next we will examine some of the technological components commonly employed by many Web 2.0
companies when developing and delivering applications. All of those we will explore are low cost and
open source. They are also highly portable and can scale very well on commodity-based hardware
platforms. This is critical for Web 2.0 entrepreneurs, who choose MySQL overwhelming because it is
affordable, open source and does the job, reliably. As their businesses grow, accommodating increasing
amounts of users and traffic, they develop additional reasons for staying with MySQL as their database
platform. This is because MySQL offers advanced feature sets and when used in conjunction with Scale
Out, it allows companies to multiply their traffic and users while keeping costs low. Ultimately this allows a
company to increase their margins and profits as the support ever increasing volumes of data.

The Benefits of Community & Open Source

As mentioned, many of the components that Web 2.0 companies rely on
to deliver their applications and services are built on open source “"Without the LAMP
components. There are a couple of key benefits that are derived by these software stack, many Web
companies leveraging software components which are open source in 2.0 companies would have
nature.
never got off the ground”
• Lower Total Cost of Ownership. This enables lower up front and long-
term costs associated with the development, delivery and execution of Tim O’Reilly
new business models.
CEO
• Component & Application Freedom: Choosing open source software O’Reilly Media
prevents vendor lock in to specific hardware or software stacks. This high
degree of interoperability across hardware and software platforms can also be leveraged against the
abundance of tools and applications for use throughout the development cycle, from design and
modeling, to testing, versioning and day to day operations management.

• LAMP: Fortunately, there is a proven open source stack which has been consistently leveraged by
companies big and small to deliver scalable, cost effective, and interoperable applications. This has been
achieved by leveraging the tight integration of Linux – Operating System, Apache – Web Server, MySQL
– Database, PHP/Perl/Python Programming & Scripting.

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 • Support: Support for open source components can usually be obtained at no cost from a community of
users and developers. It can also be purchased in the form of professional consulting and technical
support, which is available by most of the open source vendors, as well as from both large and small
ISVs. In this regard, MySQL offers both professional consulting services and technical support through a
subscription to MySQL Network. To learn more about MySQL’s professional services and MySQL
Network please visit:

http://www.mysql.com/consulting/
http://www.mysql.com/network/

Linux
Linux is a Unix-like operating system which is free and open source. All of the source code is available for
anyone to use, modify and redistribute. This is in contrast to proprietary operating systems like Windows.
Linux has been around since the early 1990’s and has at this point become the fastest growing operating
system in the world. Much of this success can be attributed to the fact it is a low-cost, secure, scalable
and highly interoperable alternative to proprietary operating systems. Linux can be found running on
everything from hand-held devices to hardware components, desktop computers to massive computing
clusters. All of these characteristics make it an excellent choice for Web 2.0 applications.

Linux shares a long tradition of compatibility with MySQL and other open source components by serving
as the operating system component of the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl, Python & PHP)
technology stack.

MySQL offers binaries and support on many popular Linux distributions like RedHat, Debian, SUSE and
Ubuntu. Generic RPMs & TAR packages are also available for other, more specialized distributions.

Apache
The Apache HTTP Server Project is an open-source Web server. It is known for being secure, highly
portable across many operating systems, efficient in utilizing resources and extensible. According to a
Netcraft Web Survey in February 2006, the Apache Web Server continues to be the world’s most popular
web server with over 70% of websites leveraging it within their technology stacks. Apache has been
extend with compiled modules for interfacing with Perl, Python and PHP.

The Apache Web Server also shares a long tradition of compatibility with MySQL and other open source
components by serving as the web server component of the LAMP stack.

We should also note the emerging popularity of another web server called Lightppd, also compatible with
MySQL, which is especially popular with developers using Ruby on Rails.

MySQL
Within the LAMP stack, MySQL comprises the database component. The database component serves as
the critical piece of software which manages the data leveraged by the applications and web servers.
MySQL is a multithreaded, multi-user, SQL Database Management System (DBMS) with over six million
installations. MySQL is the database of choice for consistently delivering lower TCO, reliability,
performance and ease of use. Many of the largest and fasting growing Web 2.0 companies are designing,

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 developing and going into production using MySQL. As their needs grow in terms of capacity, availability
and performance, MySQL continues to assist in satisfying these requirements. As with many of the
components which comprise the LAMP stack, MySQL is made available under the GNU General Public
License. We discuss in more depth the characteristics and features which make MySQL such a popular
choice for Web 2.0 companies in Section 5.

PHP, Perl and Python

PHP, Perl and Python comprise the dynamic programming and scripting language components of the
LAMP stack. Some shared characteristics which make their use appealing to Web 2.0 developers is that
they are all free, open source, highly interoperable and perfect for use with dynamic database-backed
websites and applications.

PHP Hypertext Preprocessor or simply, PHP, is an open-source language for producing dynamic web
content mainly in server-side applications. PHP typically runs on a web server, using PHP code as its
input and rendering Web pages as output. PHP is a very popular server-side alternative to Microsoft’s
ASP.NET and Adobe’s ColdFusion. PHP works extremely well with all the components within the LAMP
stack. According to php.net, it is estimated that over 20 million domains on the internet make use of the
language.

PHP includes many free and open source libraries. PHP actually provides two different MySQL API
extensions:

• mysql: which is available for PHP versions 4 and 5, is intended for use with MySQL versions
prior to MySQL 4.1

• mysqli: which stands for “MySQL, Improved”; is available only in PHP 5. It is intended for use
with MySQL 4.1.1 and later. This extension fully supports the authentication protocol used in
MySQL 5.0, as well as the Prepared Statements and Multiple Statements APIs. In addition, this
extension provides an advanced, object-oriented programming interface.

Perl is a dynamic procedural language often used for CGI scripts or as “glue” tying together systems and
interfaces not specifically designed to be interoperable. CGI or Common Gateway Interface is a standard
protocol for interfacing external application software with an information server, commonly a web server.
This allows the server to pass requests from a client web browser to the external application. The web
server can then return the output from the application to the web browser.

Python is an open source scripting language similar to Perl and Ruby. It has been used to develop many
large software projects such as the Zope application server and BitTorrent file sharing system. According
to wiki.python.org, it is also used extensively by websites like Google, Yahoo Groups and Yahoo Maps.

Ruby on Rails
Ruby on Rails is a free and open source framework written in Ruby optimized for rapidly developing
database driven web-based applications. This easy to use framework requires less code and minimal
configuration. Although Ruby on Rails ships with a default database and web server components,
production environments typically rely on the addition of MySQL and Apache. It is also characterized as
being highly interoperable across a variety of platforms and components.

Web 2.0 application development typically requires that features and enhancements be developed
quickly. An emphasis is also placed on reusability and availability so other applications and web services

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 can consume them. Ruby on Rails does an excellent job of providing a framework to achieve these
requirements.

For Ruby on Rails developers working with MySQL, there is the MySQL-Ruby module. It is a Ruby API for
accessing the MySQL server. It has the same functions as the very popular MySQL C API. It is available
at: http://www.tmtm.org/en/mysql/ruby/ .

Ajax
Asynchronous Javascript and XML or Ajax is it is more commonly known, is a development technique for
creating rich, visual appealing and interactive web applications. Web pages which leverage Ajax are more
responsive because they exchange smaller amounts of data with the web server. This means that the
entire web page does not have to be “refreshed” or completely reloaded in user’s browser after each
interaction. This results in web pages which have increased interactivity, speed and usability. These are
all key components to help Web 2.0 companies deliver applications which are highly interactive and
deliver rich end user experiences which rival those of desktop applications. For these reasons, Ajax is
already being widely leveraged in both consumer and business applications.

The core components of the Ajax technique include:

• XHTML (or HTML) and CSS leveraged for mark up and style information
• The description of how an HTML or XML document is represented in a tree structure (otherwise
known as DOM), is accessed with a client-side scripting language, usually JavaScript
• The XMLHttpRequest object is used to exchange data asynchronously with the web server
• XML as the format to transfer data between the server and client

memcached
memcachced is a popular open source distributed memory caching system originally developed by
Danga Interactive for the blogging website LiveJournal. It is traditionally leveraged to enhance the
performance and responsiveness of dynamic content websites backed by databases. This is achieved by
caching data and objects in memory, thereby reducing the amount of data that needs to be read from the
database. The performance characteristics it can deliver are faster page loading for users, more efficient
resource utilization, and faster database access times in the event of a memcached miss.

In more technical detail, memcached acts as a large hash table, caching data as it is being requested by
clients. Although it was originally designed to improve the performance of database queries, it has been
extended to cache server-side objects as well. In essence, any operation which is resource or time
intensive can benefit from the use of memcached. It goes without saying that this technology is of great
advantage to Web 2.0 applications, who by definition are very dynamic and data driven. This is in contrast
to the static non-interactive web sites characteristic of the early years of the Web.

Many websites who make use of memcached, such as LiveJournal, Slashdot and Wikipedia, also make
use of MySQL.

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 How MySQL Powers Web 2.0
The importance of data within the context of Web 2.0 cannot be overstated. An overarching goal of Web
2.0 application design is for the system to harness collective intelligence with network effects so that the
ownership of unique and difficult to reproduce data can be generated. Obviously, at the core of this story
is the database which will store and dispense the data. O’Reilly has gone so far as to state in his “What is
Web 2.0” article that “Data is the Next Intel Inside”.

There are many reasons why MySQL is being leveraged time and again by established web companies
and new emerging Web 2.0 companies. The most glaring one is cost. Web 2.0 entrepreneurs

“Fail Fast – Scale Fast”

In a July 10, 2006 article entitled “Operations: The New Secret Sauce”, Tim O’Reilly makes the statement
that, “Web 2.0 has been summed up as "Fail Fast, Scale Fast,"” The point being made is that the
operational environment will be a key differentiator in the success of Web 2.0’s adoption, especially in the
enterprise. These services are required to fail over and scale transparently without any disruption in
service to the consumer. The ability to handle explosive growth in user volume, transactions and storage
capacity is critical to delivering services on a web-based platform. To this effect, MySQL addresses these
types of issues via Scale Out, MySQL Network and an ecosystem of partner solutions.

Scale Out vs. Scale Up

Scale-out using MySQL enables organizations to cost-effectively solve database capacity issues that
result from increased traffic and transaction volumes. In particular, scale-out with MySQL provides
organizations with the following advantages:

• Easily and cost-effectively add capacity to your database infrastructure using open source
software and commodity hardware.
• Reduced hardware costs by incrementally adding several low-cost commodity systems vs.
upgrading high-cost mainframe-class systems
• Reduce software costs and eliminate up-front licensing by scaling out with MySQL
• Improve response time and availability by improving the performance of your system so users
experience fewer interruptions.
• Improve scalability using MySQL Replication to distribute large workloads to individual server
nodes for execution.
• Increased flexibility to right-size the initial purchase of commodity hardware and software,
incrementally add capacity.

Virtually any application that has a rapidly growing volume of users, transactions or data may be a
candidate for more cost-effective deployment using open source technology combined with a scale-out
architecture. MySQL is widely used for
the following Scale-Out architectures: Scale-Up
– Vertical
• Web Scale-Out to improve the – Expensive SMP hardware
performance, scalability, and – Proprietary software
availability of web applications – Platform lock-in
such as e-commerce, content – “Fork Lift” to increase capacity & performance
management, session
Scale-Out
– Horizontal
– Commodity Intel/AMD hardware
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– Open source software
– Platform independence
– Add servers to increase capacity & performance
 management, search, and security.
• Data Warehousing Scale-Out to improve the performance and availability of traditional data
warehousing (e.g. centralized data warehouse and data marts) as well as real-time Operational
Data Stores.

For more information on how Scale Out with MySQL consult the white paper titled, “Guide to Cost-
effective Database Scale-Out using MySQL” available at: http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/white-papers/

MySQL Replication
MySQL Replication is the key enabler of “Scale Out” discussed in the previous section. Scale Out is
leveraged extensively by Web 2.0 sites and applications. MySQL natively supports one-way,
asynchronous replication. Replication works by simply having one server act as a master, while one or
more servers act as slaves. This is in contrast to the synchronous replication which is a characteristic of
MySQL Cluster.

Asynchronous data replication means that data is copied from one machine to another, with a resultant
delay. Often this delay is determined by networking bandwidth, resource availability or a predetermined
time interval set by the administrator. However, with the correct components and tuning, replication itself
can appear to be almost instantaneous to most applications. Synchronous data replication implies that
data is committed to one or more machines at the same time, usually via what is commonly known as a
“two-phase commit”.

In standard MySQL Replication, the master server writes updates to its binary log files and maintains an
index of those files in order to keep track of the log rotation. The binary log files serve as a record of
updates to be sent to slave servers. When a slave connects to its master, it determines the last position it
has read in the logs on its last successful update. The slave then receives any updates which have taken
place since that time. The slave subsequently blocks and waits for the master to notify it of new updates.

Below in Figure 1 is an illustration of a basic Scale Out implementation using MySQL Replication.

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 Web/App Web/App Web/App
Server Server Server

Load Balancer

Writes & Reads Reads Reads

Master Slave Slave

MySQL MySQL MySQL
Server Server Server

Replication

Figure 1

Replication offers the benefits of reliability, performance, and ease of use:

• In the event the master fails, the application can be designed to switch to the slave.
• Better response time for clients can be achieved by splitting the load for processing client queries
between the master and slave servers. Queries which simply “read” data, such as SELECTs, may
be sent to the slave in order to reduce the query processing load on the master. Statements that
modify data should be sent to the master so that the data on the master and slave do not get out
of synch. This load-balancing strategy is effective if non-updating queries dominate. (This is
normally the case.)
• Another benefit of using replication is that database backups can be performed using a slave
server without impacting the resources on the master. The master continues to process updates
while the backup is being made.

MySQL Cluster for High Availability

Database high availability is becoming more and more relevant as entire business models begin to be
based on the premise that the underlying data that drives a company’s applications must be consistently
available. MySQL Cluster has begun to play a critical role in many of these operations, specifically in the
area of “session management”. MySQL Cluster was originally designed to meet the throughput and
response time requirements needed by some of the most demanding enterprise applications in the world.
In a nutshell, MySQL Cluster can be described as a shared-nothing, synchronous database cluster which
supports automatic fail over, transactions and in-memory data storage without any special networking,
hardware or storage requirements. Designing the system in this way allows MySQL Cluster to deliver both
highly availability and reliability, since single points of failure have been eliminated. Any node can fail

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 without affecting the system as a whole. An application, for example, can continue executing transactions
even though a data node has failed. MySQL Cluster has also proven to handle tens of thousands of
distributed transactions per second, replicated across data nodes.

As of version 5.1, MySQL Cluster supports data storage not only in main memory (RAM), but also on
disk. This arrangement allows applications to leverage the benefits of in-memory data storage, which not
only increases the performance of the application, but also limits I/O bottlenecks by asynchronously
writing transaction logs to disk. But, with the introduction of disk-data support, ever larger data sets that
do not require the performance characteristics granted to in-memory data, can be leveraged within the
cluster.

MySQL Cluster delivers an extremely fast fail over time with sub-second responses so your applications
can recover quickly in the event of a software, network or hardware failure. MySQL Cluster uses
synchronous replication to propagate transaction information to all the appropriate data nodes. This also
eliminates the time consuming operation of recreating and replaying log files as is typically required by
clusters employing shared-disk architectures. MySQL Cluster data nodes are also able to automatically
restart, recover, and dynamically reconfigure themselves in the event of failures, without developers
having to program any fail over logic into their applications.

MySQL Cluster implements an automatic node recovery that ensures any fail over to another data node
will contain a consistent set of data. Should all the data nodes fail due to hardware faults, MySQL Cluster
ensures an entire system can be safely recovered in a consistent state by using a combination of
checkpoints and log execution. Furthermore, as of version 5.1, MySQL Cluster ensures systems are
available and consistent across geographies by enabling entire clusters to be replicated across regions.

We have illustrated an example MySQL Cluster architecture below in Figure 2. A brief description of the
main components of a MySQL Cluster follows as well.

• Data Nodes are the main nodes of the system. All data is stored on these nodes. Data is
replicated between data nodes to ensure it is continuously available in case one or more of the
data nodes fail. These data nodes in turn, handle all database transactions.
• Management Nodes handle the cluster configuration and are used to change the setup of the
system. Only one management server node is required, but there is also the option of running
additional management nodes in order to increase the level of fault tolerance required. The
management node is only used at startup or during a system re-configuration, which means the
cluster is operable without the management node being online.
• MySQL Nodes are the MySQL Servers accessing the clustered data nodes. By incorporating this
design, the MySQL Server provides developers a standard SQL interface to program their
applications against. This eliminates the need for any special application programming in order to
interact with the cluster.

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 Web/App Web/App MySQL Server or NDB API
Server Server for all Writes & Reads

MySQL MySQL
Server Server

NDB API
Management
Memory NDB Server
& Data Storage Engine Data
Disk Node Node
Management
Server

MySQL Cluster

Figure 2

For more information concerning MySQL Cluster and how MySQL can be part of your session
management architecture, please visit:

http://www.mysql.com/products/database/cluster/
http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/white-papers/

MySQL Query Cache

Another feature that is used extensively by Web 2.0 applications is MySQL’s Query Cache. This is due to
the fact that accessing application data, query plans, or database metadata in RAM is much faster than
repetitively retrieving that same information from disk or building it from scratch.

The MySQL Query Cache, introduced in 4.0.1, can deliver excellent gains in the response times of both
basic and resource-intensive SQL statements. The MySQL Query Cache stores the SELECT queries
issued by clients to the MySQL database server. If an identical statement is received, the results are
returned from the query cache rather then parsing and executing the statement again.

Other characteristics of the MySQL Query Cache include:

• No stale data is ever returned to clients. Data is flushed whenever an UPDATE is issued which
invalidates the cached data set.
• The query cache is not applicable for server-side prepared statements.
• The expected overhead for enabling the query cache is about 10-15%.
• However, performance gains can be anywhere from 200 to 250% faster when used correctly.

The MySQL Query Cache should be enabled in the following scenarios:

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 • Whenever identical queries are issued by the same or multiple clients on a repetitive basis.
• Underlying data being accessed is static or semi-static in nature
• Queries have the potential to be resource intensive or brief, but the result sets are computed in a
more complex manner
• Excellent for data that will be presented across many successive web pages a user may be
navigating through

For more information abut MySQL’s Query Cache visit: http://dev.mysql.com/tech-

resources/articles/mysql-query-cache.html

Pluggable Storage Engine Architecture

MySQL's unique Pluggable Storage Engine Architecture (PSEA) gives the developer’s of Web 2.0
database-driven web applications the flexibility to choose from a portfolio of purpose-built storage engines
that are optimized for specific application domains - OLTP, Read-Intensive Scale-out, High-Availability
Clustering, Data Archiving, Data Warehousing, and more.

The PSEA also provides a standard set of server, drivers, tools, management, and support services that
are leveraged across all the underlying storage engines.

An illustration of how the PSEA fits into the overall MySQL Server’s design can be illustrated bellow in
Figure 3.

Connectors
Native C API, JDBC, ODBC, .NET, PHP, Python, Perl, Ruby, VB

MySQL Server
Enterprise
Management Connection Pool
Services & Utilities Authentication -Thread Reuse - Connection Limits – Check Memory - Caches
Backup & Recovery
Security Caches & Buffers
SQL Interface Parser Optimizer
Replication
Cluster
Partitioning DML, DDL, Query Translation, Access Paths, Global and
Instance Manager Stored Procedures Object Privilege Statistics Engine Specific
INFORMATION_SCHEMA Views, Triggers, etc. Caches & Buffers
Administrator
Workbench
Query Browser
Migration Toolkit

Pluggable Storage Engines

Memory, Index & Storage Management

MyISAM InnoDB Cluster Falcon Archive Federated Merge Memory Partner Community Custom

File System Files & Logs

NTFS – NFS Redo, Undo, Data, Index, Binary,
SAN - NAS Error, Query, and Slow

Figure 3

For more information about MySQL’s Pluggable Storage Engine Architecture visit:

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 http://solutions.mysql.com/engines.html

10 Reasons to Choose MySQL for Web 2.0 Applications

• Scalability and Flexibility: The MySQL database server provides the ultimate in scalability,
sporting the capacity to handle deeply embedded applications with a footprint of only 1MB to
running massive data warehouses holding terabytes of information. Platform flexibility is a
stalwart feature of MySQL with all flavors of Linux, UNIX, and Windows being supported. And, of
course, the open source nature of MySQL allows complete customization for those wanting to
add unique requirements to the database server.

• High Performance: A unique storage-engine architecture allows database professionals to

configure the MySQL database server specifically for particular applications, with the end result
being amazing performance results. Whether the intended application is a high-speed
transactional processing system or a high-volume web site that services a billion queries a day,
MySQL can meet the most demanding performance expectations of any system. With high-speed
load utilities, distinctive memory caches, full text indexes, and other performance-enhancing
mechanisms, MySQL offers all the right ammunition for today's critical business systems.

• High Availability: Rock-solid reliability and constant availability are hallmarks of MySQL, with
customers relying on MySQL to guarantee around-the-clock uptime. MySQL offers a variety of
high-availability options from high-speed master/slave replication configurations, to specialized
Cluster servers offering instant fail over, to third party vendors offering unique high-availability
solutions for the MySQL database server.

• Robust Transactional Support: MySQL offers one of the most powerful transactional database
engines on the market. Features include complete ACID (atomic, consistent, isolated, durable)
transaction support, unlimited row-level locking, distributed transaction capability, and multi-
version transaction support where readers never block writers and vice-versa. Full data integrity
is also assured through server-enforced referential integrity, specialized transaction isolation
levels, and instant deadlock detection.

• Web and Data Warehouse Strengths: MySQL is the de-facto standard for high-traffic web sites
because of its high-performance query engine, tremendously fast data insert capability, and
strong support for specialized web functions like fast full text searches. These same strengths
also apply to data warehousing environments where MySQL scales up into the terabyte range for
either single servers or scale-out architectures. Other features like main memory tables, B-tree
and hash indexes, and compressed archive tables that reduce storage requirements by up to
eighty-percent make MySQL a strong standout for both web and business intelligence
applications.

• Strong Data Protection: Because guarding the data assets of corporations is the number one
job of database professionals, MySQL offers exceptional security features that ensure absolute
data protection. In terms of database authentication, MySQL provides powerful mechanisms for
ensuring only authorized users have entry to the database server, with the ability to block users
down to the client machine level being possible. SSH and SSL support are also provided to
ensure safe and secure connections. A granular object privilege framework is present so that
users only see the data they should, and powerful data encryption and decryption functions
ensure that sensitive data is protected from unauthorized viewing. Finally, backup and recovery
utilities provided through MySQL and third party software vendors allow for complete logical and
physical backup as well as full and point-in-time recovery.

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 • Comprehensive Application Development: One of the reasons MySQL is the world's most
popular open source database is that it provides comprehensive support for every application
development need. Within the database, support can be found for stored procedures, triggers,
functions, views, cursors, ANSI-standard SQL, and more. For embedded applications, plug-in
libraries are available to embed MySQL database support into nearly any application. MySQL
also provides connectors and drivers (ODBC, JDBC, etc.) that allow all forms of applications to
make use of MySQL as a preferred data management server. It doesn't matter if it's PHP, Perl,
Java, Visual Basic, or .NET, MySQL offers application developers everything they need to be
successful in building database-driven information systems.

• Management Ease: MySQL offers exceptional quick-start capability with the average time from
software download to installation completion being less than fifteen minutes. This rule holds true
whether the platform is Microsoft Windows, Linux, Macintosh, or UNIX. Once installed, self-
management features like automatic space expansion, auto-restart, and dynamic configuration
changes take much of the burden off already overworked database administrators. MySQL also
provides a complete suite of graphical management and migration tools that allow a DBA to
manage, troubleshoot, and control the operation of many MySQL servers from a single
workstation. Many third party software vendor tools are also available for MySQL that handle
tasks ranging from data design and ETL, to complete database administration, job management,
and performance monitoring.

• Open Source Freedom and 24 x 7 Support: Many corporations

are hesitant to fully commit to open source software because they “We would not have been
believe they can't get the type of support or professional service
able to achieve our goals
safety nets they currently rely on with proprietary software to
so quickly without the high-
ensure the overall success of their key applications. The questions
quality support we have
of indemnification come up often as well. These worries can be put
to rest with MySQL as complete around-the-clock support as well received through MySQL
as indemnification is available through MySQL Network. MySQL is Network. The rapid
not a typical open source project as all the software is owned and response and creative
supported by MySQL AB, and because of this, a unique cost and solutions provided by
support model are available that provides a unique combination of MySQL’s trained staff have
open source freedom and trusted software with support. been invaluable.”

• Lowest Total Cost of Ownership: By migrating current database- Chris Lunt

drive applications to MySQL, or using MySQL for new development Dir of Engineering
projects, corporations are realizing cost savings that many times
stretch into seven figures. Accomplished through the use of the Friendster
MySQL database server and scale-out architectures that utilize
low-cost commodity hardware, corporations are finding that they can achieve amazing levels of
scalability and performance, all at a cost that is far less than those offered by proprietary and
scale-up software vendors. In addition, the reliability and easy maintainability of MySQL means
that database administrators don't waste time troubleshooting performance or downtime issues,
but instead can concentrate on making a positive impact on higher level tasks that involve the
business side of data.

Conclusion
As we have seen, a common characteristic of many top emerging Web 2.0 companies and of established
web properties, is that they rely of MySQL as a critical piece of infrastructure within their technology
stacks to deliver performance, scalability and reliability to millions of users. The MySQL database server
consistently offers a lower total cost of ownership without having to sacrifice performance, reliability or

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 ease of use in the process. Combined with an open source development model and community
characteristics, the ability to implement scale out with pronounced ubiquity and interoperability, make
MySQL the logical choice for the next generation of Web 2.0 web sites, applications, services and
companies. Web 2.0 is the future, and open source and MySQL are the fabric, and it has never been
easier to take advantage of new concepts and technologies at such a low cost. Welcome to World 2.0!

About MySQL
MySQL AB develops and markets a family of high performance, affordable database servers and tools.
Our mission is to make superior data management available and affordable for all. We contribute to
building the mission-critical, high-volume systems and products worldwide.

MySQL AB is defining a new database standard. This is based on its dedication to providing a less
complicated solution suitable for widespread application deployment at a greatly reduced TCO. MySQL's
robust database solutions embody an ingenious software architecture while delivering dramatic cost
savings. With superior speed, reliability, and ease of use, MySQL has become the preferred choice of
corporate IT Managers because it eliminates the major problems associated with downtime,
maintenance, administration and support.

MySQL is a key part of LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP / Perl / Python), a fast growing open source
enterprise software stack. More and more companies are using LAMP as an alternative to expensive
proprietary software stacks because of its lower cost and freedom from lock-in.

Our flagship product is MySQL, the world's most popular open source database, with more than 10 million
active installations. Many of the world's largest organizations, including Sabre Holdings, Cox
Communications, The Associated Press, NASA and Suzuki, are realizing significant cost savings by using
MySQL to power Web sites, business-critical enterprise applications and packaged software. MySQL AB
is a second generation, open source company, with dual licensing that supports open source values and
methodology in a profitable, sustainable business

Additional MySQL & Web 2.0 Resources

MySQL and Web 2.0 Portal
http://www.mysql.com/industry/web/

Web 2.0 Articles

“What is Web 2.0”
Tim O’Reilly
9/30/2005
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

“Levels of the Game: The Hierarchy of Web 2.0 Applications”

Tim O’Reilly
7/17/2006
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/07/levels_of_the_game.html

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 “Operations: The New Secret Sauce”
Tim O’Reilly
7/10/2006
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/07/cloudy_with_a_chance_of_server_1.html

White Papers
http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/white-papers/

Case Studies
http://www.mysql.com/customers/

Press Releases, News and Events

http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/

Live Webinars
http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/web-seminars/

Webinars on Demand
http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/on-demand-webinars/

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