One of the easiest RDBMS to work with!!
Written: Mar 30 '03
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Pros: Probably the fastest and definitely the easiest. Loads of online information available.
Cons: No stored procedures and triggers.
The Bottom Line: One of the easiest database solutions to deploy.
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| beerbrain's Full Review: MySQL |
MySQL was the first database system that I worked with and despite it's shortcomings, I have to admit that it works like a charm. It's definitely one of the most prevalent RDBMS on the internet.
MySQL is available for most of the popular Operating Systems. Installing MySql is a no-brainer. MySQL is bundled along with most of the Linux distributions and can be installed right at the time of installing the OS or later on by either compiling the source code or with the help of a pre-compiled binary file. In Windows, you will have to download it separately from the site and then install it by simply double clicking the setup file.
The licensing model for MySQL is a bit weird. MySQL is not exactly free. Under Linux/Unix/*nix and other non Windows systems, it's completely free to use as long as you're not making any money out of it. Under Windows, it's completely free to try for 30 days after which you need a license. However that's up to you to decide whether you require a license or not because it will not stop working even after those 30 days are over. The licensing cost is not very steep though and I believe that the licensed version of MySQL is configured to run faster than the non-licensed version of MySQL under Windows, although I'm not too sure on that, so just check out their site if you need any more information on that.
MySQL distribution basically consists of three components; a server, a client and the development libraries. The server component is the heart of MySQL, it manages the databases and provides connectivity to the client side applications. The client component provided with the MySQL distribution is a bare bones command line utility with the help of which you can connect to the server and query your databases. If you're uncomfortable using the command line, then there are many other third party GUI client side utilities available on the net and quite a few of them are free. The development library provided with MySQL is primarily written in and for C but there are bindings available for numerous other programming languages, prominent amongst them being PERL and PHP.
One of the primary reasons for MySQL's popularity is the fact that it's fast. Even on pretty moderate hardware it performs extremely fast. No matter how complex a query you throw at MySQL, it's able to process it in no time at all. MySQL server supports numerous simultaneous connections with multiple database connectivity and even under conditions where multiple clients are accessing the server, it still manages to maintain it's superlative speeds. MySQL's developer's claim that it is the fastest database server, a claim which has been verified by numerous independent benchmark tests.
There are a wide number of APIs available for most of the prominent programming languages, so you can easily develop applications that can access your MySQL server. In addition to these libraries MySQL also supports ODBC, so your current ODBC enabled applications should work along with MySQL without a hitch.
As far as the security aspect of MySQL is concerned, I've never actually heard of any security issues related to MySQL but then I've never managed a MySQL server running in an hostile environment anyway so I could be wrong. But considering that MySQL is developed under the Open Source model, I guess even if the security issues did arise, they would be patched up in no time.
Technical support is widely available on the net. There are various mailing lists on the net where you can put forward your queries and receive help from thousands of MySQL enthusiasts from all over the world. The online documentation available at MySQL's official web site is pretty comprehensive too. If you are still a bit skeptical, you can get Technical Support from the developers of MySQL but this will cost you.
MySQL is not the perfect RDBMS though, there are a few important features missing from MySQL. MySQL does not have any provision for stored procedures or triggers. Transactions and commit/rollback are also not supported by MySQL. All these features are on the to-do list and should be available in some future release or may even be present in the current release (I can't be sure because it's been some time since I've worked with MySQL, but the last version I worked with certainly didn't have them.).
Personally I think MySQL works very well and is well supported and should be a feasible solution in almost any kind of business model. However, if the lack of features bothers you and you don't have a lot of money to burn, you could probably go for PostgreSQL, it's completely free and Open Source but is only available for Unix/Linux/*nix Operating Systems, there is no Windows port as far as I know. On the other hand, if you have the money to burn then I'm pretty sure you also have an IT department to advise you about which RDBMS solution you should opt for, let those overpaid b@stards earn their living for a change!!
Recommended:
Yes
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beerbrain
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Reviews written: 30
Trusted by: 13 members
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Exams are on. Be back when the shock wears off!!
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