Web Hosting features: MySQL

MySQL is an open source implementation of a relational database management system based on the SQL standard for defining, accessing and manipulating databases.

With over 11 million installations worldwide, it is the most popular RDBMS. It is that popular because of the open source model and the trend toward using those types of solutions in the current markets. Even before the economic climate, we are experiencing today, open source gained a lot of momentum.

Since the SQL standard is such a widespread model for supporting the use of databases, it is a much easier decision on the part of businesses to use this implementation of the standard. As portability between relational databases is relatively easy, if there becomes a need to move to a commercial implementation for some reason then that can be done relatively easily. It is done the same way that businesses migrated to it in the first place. There are utilities that enable the migration in either direction.

One of the main reasons for the success of the open source database environment has been attributed to the consolidation of the vendors in the commercial side of this space. With that consolidation came perceptions of monopolistic attitudes towards customers. Aggressive licensing practices, maintenance pricing and the tiered pricing models became too much for the customer base to handle. Alternatives became available as the open source movement grew and the porting of other implementations into an open source licensing model became possible. As other tools became open source, it made sense for this most basic of components of modern application systems and websites to become available in an open source implementation as well.

While the MySQL database is owned by a for-profit company, it’s licensing arrangement for the system follows traditional open source licensing models. Essentially this company owns the copyright for the system but licenses it with the GNU GPL (General Public License) license structure.

There has been wide acceptance of MySQL by the other open source products and support across multiple operating environments by MySQL makes it popular particularly in the startup environment where new products are being developed. Many very large websites use MySQL for their production work and in fact sustain very high usage rates. Sites like Google, Facebook, Flickr, Nokia, Wikipedia and YouTube are run on MySQL.

There are issues though that has created a set of critics of using MySQL. Current releases are addressing some of those issues.

MySQL is also available for license as an Enterprise license where support and other options are available on a paid basis.

There have been interesting developments with the acquisition by Oracle, the leading commercial database supplier, of several companies who have developed underlying storage systems for MySQL. These storage systems implemented a more robust set of options for users and with the Oracle acquisition the possibilities exist that these storage options would then become subject to traditional Oracle licensing procedures.

There are applications for which MySQL might not be appropriate due to some performance considerations, like Data Warehousing applications where very large volumes of data are required to be processed very rapidly.