Dec 21, 2012

2012, the Best Year for MySQL (...so far, but more to come)

It's the end of the year and, before the world ends ;-) , I feel the pressure to follow up on last year's article "2011, a great year for MySQL in Review". I'll adopt a similar format and mention things in context, covering products, marketing, momentum, etc. at a high level. I may have missed something and I hope my colleagues will contribute to the list.

I really do think it's been the best year for MySQL so far... well, at least since when I signed my contract with MySQL AB at the end of 2007. We're just at the beginning of our journey and I wish to the MySQL family, to our community and ecosystem an even better 2013!

Summary
With MySQL Cluster 7.2 GA, MySQL 5.6 Release Candidate and Cluster 7.3 DMR this is the start of something exceptional. These products are introducing long-awaited features and received very positive feedback from our community.

New windows tools joined the party to help customers migrate from Microsoft SQL Server and access MySQL from Excel. MySQL Cluster Manager has been updated and the new auto-installer saw the light of the day. We improved our Connectors, released new ones and delivered additional value to MySQL Enterprise Edition customers. We've also held our first ever MySQL Connect conference that's been a phenomenal success and the MySQL momentum is growing exponentially.

Products
MySQL 5.6 will be loved by developers, giving them more freedom to build next generation applications. With huge performance improvements, new NoSQL access and better replication, that's going to be the best MySQL release to date.
New options for High Availability are waiting to be deployed in your data centers to increase service levels and policy-based auditing will make your servers safer.
MySQL Cluster 7.2 went GA in February, initially delivering 1.2 Billion queries per minute, but then beating his own achievement and producing 1.1 Billion queries writes per minute. Adaptive Query Localization and better ease of use increased Cluster use cases. Leveraging our Not-Only SQL strategy, the latest previews introduced Node.JS access to provide developers further flexibility. Last but not least, Foreign Keys are now part of MySQL Cluster 7.3 DMR.

Case Studies
A lot of case studies can be found here, but let me pick some of the recent noteworthy ones:
  • MySQL Cluster Powers El Chavo from Playful Play, Latin America's Most Popular Facebook Game.
  • RedeHost Quadriples Backup Speed with MySQL Enterprise Edition
  • With Its MySQL Database-as-a-Service CERN Empowers Scientists
  • StayFriends Secures a Leading Position Among European Social Media Sites with Robust, High-Performance, Relational Database
  • Tilgin Improves Subscriber Device Management by Enabling Telecommunications Operators with Robust Database Solution
  • Verizon Wireless Supports its Mission-Critical Employee Portal with MySQL
  • A special mention goes to Twitter, who's handled a huge workload with MySQL during 2012 Presidential Elections
Events & Momentum
At the first ever MySQL Connect conference, Edward Screven presented enlightening statistics:
  • Over 15 Million Estimated Active Installations
  • Facebook: 163k Fans, +35% Yoy Growth
  • Twitter: 25k Followers, +67% Yoy Growth
  • MySQL Newsletter: 1,4m Subscribers, +20% YoY Growth
  • Events: Dozens Of Fully Booked Dev Days & Tech Tours
  • Awards: CRN, Linux Journal, PHP Architect...
Several of those numbers have grown since then, and MySQL once again got awarded the Linux Journal Reader’s Choice Award as Best Database for 2012.

People are downloading, tweeting, liking, adopting and blogging about MySQL at a great pace. Embedding MySQL has become a common practice. Adoption in the Cloud is skyrocketing and MySQL has emerged as the leading database, offered by the vast majority of cloud services providers. MySQL is also a key component of big data platforms, with Hadoop vendors estimating 80% of their deployments are integrated with MySQL. MySQL is everywhere!

To all MySQL users, customers, partners, colleagues, developers, advocates and aficionados: Thank you for another amazing year! Go MySQL!
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