MySQL has announced general availability of Version 4.1
of its MySQL open-source database, which the company is positioning
as production-ready for large-scale enterprise usage.
The upgrade features advanced querying capabilities through
subqueries, faster and more flexible client-server communication,
and new installation and configuration tools. Security also is
improved and support has been added for international character
sets and geographic data.
The subqueries and derived tables feature allows users to more
easily search complex data sets. A new GUI installer and
configuration wizards for Linux and Windows make it easier to set
up and optimise databases, according to MySQL.
"We're continuing to add a lot of the enterprise capabilities
that people are looking for, like subqueries and prepared
statements," said Zack Urlocker, vice-president of marketing at
MySQL. "We continue to improve the performance and make it easier
to use with every single release."
Analysts, however, said the company still needs to add support
for stored procedures and triggers before the product will be
considered enterprise-ready.
"It is not enterprise-ready until features such as [stored
procedures and triggers] are there," said Donald Feinberg,
vice-president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.
Those capabilities, plus a views feature, are to be added in
release 5.0 of MySQL, targeted for shipment early next year. It
had been initially set for release late in 2004.
"[Version] 5.0 is what needs to come out. Not sure why this came
along now," Feinberg said.
"I think [4.1 is] an incremental step," added Noel Yuhanna, an
analyst at Forrester Research. "It's definitely a requirement to
have a new release coming out every 12 to 18 months."
Security and performance improvements in 4.1 are worthwhile, but
the company still needs to add stored procedures and triggers,
Yuhanna said.
Encrypted client-server communication, featured in release 4.1,
is enabled using OpenSSL, to boost security against intrusion and
unauthorised access.
Also included is a faster client-server protocol supporting
prepared statements and providing optimised query execution and
improved warning information.
Full text and Help features also are improved in Version 4.1,
MySQL said. The Help function now offers expanded
documentation.
For embedded applications, Version 4.1 has a better optimised
MySQL server library with a smaller memory footprint that performs
faster when embedded in third-party software.
MySQL 4.1 is available now for Linux, Windows, Solaris, Mac OS
X, FreeBSD, HP-UX, IBM's AIX, and other operating systems.
The product is offered under a dual licensing model, in which it
is available through either an open source or a commercial
licence.
For open-source usage, in which source code is made available,
the product is free. Commercial pricing, for using the database in
commercially distributed applications, starts at $595 (£326) per
server. Support charges cost extra, Urlocker said.
Paul Krill writes for Infoworld