MYSQL IS A DATABASE

Something of a follow-on to MONGO DB IS WEB SCALE. I love these things.

Oracle + MySQL = Monopoly?

BRUSSELS -- The European Commission opened an antitrust investigation into Oracle Corp.'s $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc., dealing a blow to Oracle's efforts to keep Sun customers who are increasingly being wooed by rival technology companies.

That's from EU to Probe Oracle-Sun Deal on September 3rd.

Ostensibly, this is about MySQL.

In announcing the probe, the European Union's executive arm cited concern that the deal would stymie competition for database software...Sun makes a low-cost alternative [MySQL] that is increasing in popularity.

With all of the database offerings out there, how can this even be a consideration?

Let's say Oracle decides to squash MySQL (which I doubt), are you telling me that it can't or won't be forked? Are you also telling me that these businesses have no other choices in database software?

monopoly ((economics) a market in which there are many buyers but only one seller) "a monopoly on silver"; "when you have a monopoly you can ask any price you like"

The wikipedia entry is littered with words like "exclusive" and phrases like "sole control." Where is the monopoly?

This isn't about Oracle, specifically, either. I could never understand the charges against Microsoft. Shouldn't they be allowed to build their systems the way they want to?

Oracle Has Customers Over a Barrell

If Oracle buys Sun, it could cripple or kill the rival product. "The Commission has an obligation to ensure that customers would not face reduced choice or higher prices as a result of this takeover," Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement.

Rival? Really? Didn't Marten Mickos say that MySQL wasn't, or didn't want to be, a competitor of Oracle?

Where is the reduced choice?

Besides (please correct me if I am wrong), aren't these customers paying for support and not the product itself?

Anyway, there are plenty of database options out there. If MySQL does fork, it might just be better for everyone involved because they'll take it in a new or different direction.

Please help this confused soul and explain to me how this might be a monopoly.

It's the Data, Stupid!

Search for the phrase on Google and you'll get plenty of results.

After reflecting for a few days on reaction to MySQL, I think I've realized what is at the heart of it all. Data.

Application developers are not stewards of data. They believe that to be the job of the DBA.

Someone recently asked one of our architects what features of MySQL convinced them to choose this as our new database engine. It's open source!

Of course, that makes perfect sense.

Can it connect to Oracle?

I don't know.

Our architects are made up primarily of former application developers, be it web or client server apps. Data was never that important...

They are currently driving our tool set to favor the application developers, which makes perfect sense to them. It's all about the interface.

But it's not. In the health-care industry, data is king. For any industry really.

I've been trying to convince everyone that this million dollar piece of software called Oracle is not just a bucket, it's feature rich. Streams, Queueing, all kinds of really cool tools. According to our DBAs, none of that stuff is used.

No wonder we're moving to MySQL.

So my quest is to convince the powers that be is to stop wasting money on our million dollar buckets and use them to their full capabilities.

If you have any information to help in this fight, links, slideshows, whatever, please send them on to me (myfirstname.mylastname@gmail.com), please!

Help me turn the tide back to Oracle, back to the data!

Is It Arrogance?

I wrote on Friday night about my experiences that day.

I am a very opinionated person. I believe, whole-heartedly, that the database is severely under-utilized, especially at my current employer.

I believe that one of the big draws of MySQL is that it's easy for web/application people to pick up. I also believe, in our situation, that's it's a way for application developers to skirt the whole "data" problem. They'll just pawn it off on the Production DBAs to keep the database running.

Amusingly, some of our application developers brought down one of our Oracle instances, more than once. Pretty tough thing to do I always thought.

I've read articles on bind variables since the beginning, but since it had been drilled into me, I found it quaint. Who would do that?

From a C# app someone passed in hundreds of thousands of un-bound INSERT statements. It flooded the shared pool (is that right?) and brought it to a screeching halt.

Anyway, back to the point.

I've been very vocal lately about MySQL. A few of my friends have begun to warn me that I may be crossing the line towards arrogance. That I will come off as someone resistant to change.

I don't see it. But sometimes we're the last to see our own reflection.

I don't believe that I am resistant to change. I like change. I just want it to be proven, that's all. I embraced ApEx because it made my life easier. That's all I want.

Does this make me arrogant?

MySQL Friday

Each month we have an IT All-Hands meeting.

Last month I was promoted to Senior Vice President (SVP), because of my superior management techniques.

Today I was promoted to CEO! Unfortunately it only lasted for a few minutes. I happen to resemble our new CEO (and I'm always pining for a promotion) and they thought it would be funny (again) to bring me up.

I hugged the guy behind me, shook hands with people next to me and ran up to the front. I wanted to shriek, like the people do on The Price is Right, but I didn't have it in me. You gotta have fun at work right?

Well, after that it got serious. Our new Director (at WellCare, Directors are executives, one step up from managers and one below VPs) who heads our architecture team (and release management) got up to discuss where he would be taking us.

Slide one:
From 3 database engines to 1.
From 4 programming languages to 2.
From 3 OSs to 1.

Wanna guess what question I had?

"So, what database engine are we going to use?"

I knew the answer, but I take every single opportunity I get to make my point.

"MySQL."

Being on the datawarehouse team, I was confident that Oracle was not going away.

He went on to explain:

"Legacy applications would be maintained but everything going forward would be done in MySQL."

A flurry of questions came from the crowd so I was unable to followup immediately. I could feel the room come alive...it was weird (I think I'm still hopped up from the events that took place today).

Our CIO asked if there were any more questions or comments.

I spoke up.

I have two points.
1. If it's about cost, move all of the one-off applications into just a few Oracle instances. From what I can tell, we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 100. Let's say 5 databases, datawarehouse, our production OLTP and one for others. All you need to do is assign them different schemas, voila! Cost is much lower and there is a very big chance to reuse code.
2. Actually, I can't remember what my other point was. I think it had something to do with putting the logic in the database, that Java was the fad a few years ago, Ruby was the big thing now, what would it be in 5 years? Will we have to rewrite all of the logic then? (I guess I do sorta remember).

After that, someone asked about the two programming languages. Not a great answer from the crowd's reaction. Then someone asked about the OS.

The crowd was riotous (if that's a word). The CIO had to calm us all down.

I made a remark that he hadn't danced yet (one of our former hazing techniques for new employees) because I didn't want it to be completely personal, or just to ease something that I started.

After the meeting, I spoke with the Director. Oracle will be gone in 20 years because of the open source databases, it's being commoditized (not sure what that means). SOA is the wave of the future.

It was a polite conversation. I told him I look forward to learning from him but that I will probably never be sold on that idea. Fewer moving parts, simplicity, that's what I want.

I then spoke with the CIO, told him that once the decision was made, I would support it and keep my mouth shut (or find a new job).

I sent an email to the VP of the Director's group (after a couple of beers...idiot!) explaining my rationale.

One of the biggest reasons we chose to come to Tampa, to WellCare specifically, was because it was so young and immature. I would have the opportunity, if I could prove myself, to shape the future of IT here.

It's nice to have a voice.

Anyway, it's Friday, I'm prepped to spend all weekend at work to get this project delivered that was due in November. Have a good weekend!

Open Source Obsession?

Since our new CIO came on board last January, there seems to a big movement towards Open Source tools.

While I have nothing against them, I've used various tools in the past; I just don't see what our obsession is with them.

Let's start with Ruby on Rails. An open source framework built on top of Ruby. It's used for web development. It's supposed to be a much more user intuitive language which makes it so easy. Fair enough. I'm always for something that will make my job easier. Our corporate website and provider portals were previously created on the dot net framework.

It was decided last year to replace our entire web infrastructure with Ruby on Rails. I'm still trying to figure out why. It's not that I am a pro-Microsoft guy, but the site worked. There were complaints about it missing this or that functionality, but that's fairly easy to remedy. As far as I know, dot net can support AJAX functionality (which I believe was at the heart of everything).

The demos of the new site were very cool (apparently we paid someone a lot of money to design the site...a LOT of money). It looked all web 2.0ey, big buttons, small text (which is a suprise given we are an HMO managing Medicare). It looked a lot like the 37signals applications in fact. I guess I've read Tom Kyte for far too long and his rant about putting business logic in the database because the front end will always change. Seems true. Java or dot net were all the rage a few years back, now it's Ruby, in a couple of years it will be something else (ApEx!) at which point we will have to rewrite the whole thing.

Next up, MySQL. It's a given that this database has come a long way. Version 5 even has stored procedures. It's a great free database that supports many websites out there. Free is good. Well, mostly free anyway, we do pay support costs right now. Almost every new project is built on top of MySQL. Why? I'm not sure other than free.

I asked the question to the CIO in one of our All-Hands meetings and his response was cost.

Fair enough, Oracle is expensive. The way we use Oracle is even more so. Each project seems to get it's own database. Why they don't get a schema on an existing database I don't quite understand. I've been told that it is a logistical nightmare to pull down a database that affects so many different applications. Each group wants their own version, etc., etc.

I can understand the Data Warehouse having their own database and perhaps our main appplication having it's own database; but every single application? Why not a one off database that houses all the smaller applications in different schemas? That's what Oracle was built for? Plus you can reuse code, reduce the number of instances (thus reducing the cost)...I just don't understand.

I believe my main complaint is that they are still just treating the database (whether Oracle or MySQL) like a bucket. Web people should not be writing SQL; Ruby people should not be writing SQL; just like I shouldn't be writing Ruby code. I don't know it.

I would be willing to bet that I could re-create many of our smaller applications in a much shorter period of time in Oracle and ApEx given the same requirements.

So I rant on. If I truly thought that this was an effort to make IT cheaper and more sustainable, I would be on board. I just don't see that that is the case...