Shinguz's blog

Artificial intelligence (AI) and vector databases are on everyone's lips these days. Since MariaDB will soon be coming onto the market with vector database functionality, as a database consultant I thought it was about time I got to grips with the subject so that I have at least a hint of what it's all about...

Since I'm not so much of a theoretician but rather like to do something practical, I've built a small "AI" prototype that anyone can build very quickly and easily on their laptop (without a GPU)...

FromDual has the pleasure to announce the release of the new version 2.3.1 of its popular Backup and Recovery Manager for MariaDB and MySQL (brman).

What is it about?

When describing backup and restore scenarios, a full backup and a full restore of the database instance (mariadbd/mysqld) are usually assumed. This means that the entire database instance, including all databases (schemas), is backed up and restored.

In practice, however, the situation is often different: An entire database instance is not to be restored, but only individual databases or even individual tables, because only these have broken.

FromDual has the pleasure to announce the release of the new version 2.3.0 of its popular Backup and Recovery Manager for MariaDB and MySQL (brman).

One feature that really excited me in the new MariaDB 11.4 LTS release is the shrinking of the system tablespace (ibdata1). I have been eagerly waiting for this feature since around 2006 and now it has finally arrived with MariaDB 11.4.
Actually, this feature has been available since MariaDB 11.2 IR (June 2023).

Unfortunately, the announcement of this feature came a little too short. In the MariaDB release notes it says succinctly:

FromDual is pleased to announce the release of the new version 1.2.2 of the popular FromDual Ops Center focmm, a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for MariaDB, MySQL and compatible databases.

The FromDual Ops Center for MariaDB and MySQL (focmm) helps DBAs and system administrators to better manage their MariaDB and MySQL databases and Galera Cluster farms. Ops Center makes life easier for DBAs and Admins!

Table of contents

• Review
• One month later
• Size of the tables
• Process list
• Global variables
• Metadata Lock and InnoDB Transaction Lock
• Global status

Review

Due to an application error, our replication stopped for 5 days (over Easter). After the problem was solved, the replication was supposed to catch up, which turned out to be very slow. All the usual tricks (innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit, sync_binlog, etc.) had already been exhausted. So we tried our hand at parallel replication of the MariaDB server.

Parallel replication is deactivated by default:

Recently I had to test a new MariaDB feature that was developed at our request (MDEV-33782). To test this feature I had to build the MariaDB server myself from source, which I have not done for a long time. So a new challenge, especially with CMake...

I followed the MariaDB documentation Get, Build and Test Latest MariaDB the Lazy Way to build the server.

Table of contents

• Overview
• Preparations
• Activate MaxScale configuration synchronisation
• Change MaxScale parameters
• Add new slave and make MaxScale known
• Remove old slave and make MaxScale known
• How is the configuration synchronised?

Table of contents

• Overview
• Preparation of the shards (MariaDB database instances)
• Create test data
• Creating roles and users
• MaxScale Monitor User
• MaxScale Admin User
• Create application role and accounts

Table of contents

• Functionality of dbstat
• How does dbstat work
• How to install dbstat
• Query dbstat
  • table_size
  • processlist
  • trx_and_lck
  • metadata_lock

FromDual has the pleasure to announce the release of the new version 2.1.0 of its popular MariaDB, Galera Cluster and MySQL multi-instance environment MyEnv.

The new MyEnv can be downloaded here. How to install MyEnv is described in the MyEnv Installation Guide.

The design of a data warehouse differs from relational design. Data warehouses are often designed according to the concept of the star schema.

When building a data warehouse, you usually put the cart before the horse:

FromDual has the pleasure to announce the release of the new version 2.1.0 of its popular Database Performance Monitor for MariaDB and Galera Cluster fpmmm.

The FromDual Performance Monitor for MariaDB (fpmmm) enables DBAs and System Administrators to monitor and understand what is going on inside their MariaDB database instances and on the machines where the databases reside.

Introduction

Two points in advance:

Scenario: MariaDB Community Server is release every 3 months. The exact date is not known but it is typically about 2 to 3 weeks after the MySQL/Oracle CPU.

We upgrade regularly customer systems, also their MariaDB Galera Cluster systems. Because we made in the past some very bad experience upgrading production MariaDB Galera Clusters short after release date we became a bit more careful. Our new policy is: We wait a few weeks before installing a new release.

FromDual has the pleasure to announce the release of the new version 1.2.1 of its popular FromDual Ops Center focmm, a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for MariaDB, MySQL and compatible databases.

The FromDual Ops Center for MariaDB and MySQL (focmm) helps DBA's and System Administrators to better manage their MariaDB and MySQL databases and Galera Cluster farms. Ops Center makes DBA and Admins life easier!

FromDual has the pleasure to announce the release of the new version 1.2.0 of its popular FromDual Ops Center focmm, a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for MariaDB, MySQL and compatible databases.

The FromDual Ops Center for MariaDB and MySQL (focmm) helps DBA's and System Administrators to better manage their MariaDB and MySQL databases and Galera Cluster farms. Ops Center makes DBA and Admins life easier!

A while ago I read a paper about Optimizer Benchmarks: How Good Are Query Optimizers, Really? by Viktor Leis from Fakultät für Informatik of the Technische Universität München.

Before you consider migrating your data from MySQL to another database you have to know which objects have to be migrated.

With this query you will find the objects to consider:

Currently we are in the testing phase of the next release of our Ops Center (focmm).

The newest release of the Performance Monitor for MariaDB and MySQL v2.0.0 (fpmmm) allows you to monitor your MariaDB and MySQL databases via SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol).

This feature enables you to report your Database Metrics into Enterprise Monitoring solutions from Microsoft, IBM or into Oracle Cloud Control.

FromDual has the pleasure to announce the release of the new version 2.0.0 of its popular Database Performance Monitor for MariaDB and Galera Cluster fpmmm.

The FromDual Performance Monitor for MariaDB (fpmmm) enables DBAs and System Administrators to monitor and understand what is going on inside their MariaDB database instances and on the machines where the databases reside.

For this how-to we were working with a MariaDB 10.6.5 database server and the newest MariaDB MaxScale 6.3.0 (aka 2.6) load balancer/proxy.

As a starting point we had a working MariaDB Master/Master replication with one active Master (M_a) and one passive Master (M_p). Whereas the passive Master was set to read_only. As a replication user we used the user replication.