MySQL Connect Guide for Developers

MySQL Connect is a new conference with a lot of good technical content. In the past, it has been helpful to have “guides” of MySQL conferences, so in this post I will give my guide to MySQL Connect for Developers. Gerry and I did a lot of recommendations in OurSQL Episode 103, but that was before the schedule itself was up, so now I can present a list of session-by-session talks for developers who are building their schedules.

So here’s a guide to MySQL Connect for developers, with times. Note that these are handpicked from what I think developers would be interested in. There are many more sessions than the ones listed here, so head on over to the Schedule Builder to build your own schedule:

Saturday, September 29th:
9-10:30 am
MySQL Connect Keynote: The State of the Dolphin by Tomas Ulin, VP and Edward Screven, Chief Corporate Architect, both of Oracle. I am pretty excited to see where Oracle is taking MySQL next!

11:30 am -12:30 pm
You are in luck if you are, or want to be, a Java developer, because there is a hands-on lab for Developing Applications with MySQL and Java with Mark Matthews. Hands-on labs are where you learn by doing, so this is not to be missed if you want to learn how to develop scalable Java applications.

On the internals side, there are a few good optimizer talks that would benefit developers. One is Olav Sandstå’s MySQL Optimizer Overview – you will learn how MySQL chooses the optimal path, and by learning how MySQL does that, you can write better queries.

Oracle’s Geir Høydalsvik presents What’s New in MySQL Server 5.6? which explains the new features and performance enhancements in the 5.6 MySQL Server release candidate. I have a feeling they will have a new release version by MySQL Connect (another DMR? beta? RC?) and we will hear about all the new features in that release, too.

1 – 2 pm
Manyi Lu will present an Overview of New Optimizer Features in MySQL 5.6, talking about multi-range read, index condition pushdown, batched key access, and the new EXPLAIN features.

If you are a beginner, you will want to attend the Hands-on Lab Getting started with MySQL presented by Gillian Gunson and Alfredo Kojima, to learn the MySQL architecture, how to install and configure the MySQL server, and how to query and back up the database. You will also learn about error messages, accounts, datatypes, simple SQL statements and how to import data into and export it from the MySQL server. And remember, you are doing this all in front of a computer, because this is a hands-on lab. This hands on lab runs from 1-3:30 pm, so there is plenty of time to learn and do a lot!

As you probably know, InnoDB is the default storage engine for Oracle’s MySQL as of MySQL Release 5.5. It provides the standard ACID-compliant transactions, row-level locking, multiversion concurrency control, and referential integrity. InnoDB also implements several innovative technologies to improve its performance and reliability. Chunsen Sung presents 10 Things You Should Know About InnoDB, which is a brief history of InnoDB; its main features; and some recent enhancements for better performance, scalability, and availability.

2:30-3:30 pm
Alexander Rubin from Oracle has a session on the New MySQL Full-text Search Features and Solutions, including the new InnoDB FULLTEXT search*.

If you develop with Python, Geert Vanderkelen has a session about Developing Python Applications with MySQL Utilities and MySQL Connector/Python.

4:00 – 5:00 pm
Heard all the hype about MySQL Cluster? See for yourself what it can do in a Hands-on Lab presented by Santo Leto, Get Started With MySQL Cluster.

Or, head on over to a talk featuring Oracle and Amazon engineers talking about Using MySQL in the Cloud. The Amazon folks know their subject matter when it comes to cloud computing!

5:30 – 6:30 pm
If you are a developer interested in performance, Mark Matthews presents MySQL Enterprise’s Monitor for Developers – the description says you will “learn how to resolve potential performance and scalability issues revealed via performance graphs and query analyzer data from the Monitor feature of MySQL Enterprise Edition and apply them to your own application development. In addition, you will learn how to extend the Monitor feature with your own application-specific performance metrics to extend your visibility into performance issues into the deployment and operations realm.”

If you are interested in migrating to MySQL from Microsoft SQL Server, do not miss Sergio De La Cruz Rodriguez’s talk on Migrating from Microsoft SQL Server to MySQL: The New MySQL Migration Tool.

Or if you are a more security-focused developer, head on over to my own talk on Google-Hacking MySQL

6:30 – 8:30 pm – MySQL Connect Reception in the Continental Ballroom

7:00 – 8:00 pm – Birds of a Feather talks – informal discussion sessions
I think these might be relevant to developers:
Python
MySQL Community
Query Optimizations

And it is only the end of the first day! The exhibit hall is open 9:30 am – 1:30 pm, and 7 – 9 pm.

Sunday, September 30th
8:30 am – 9:30 am
MySQL Perspectives Keynote featuring Twitter‘s DB Team manager Jeremy Cole, PayPal‘s Chief Architect Daniel Austin, Verizon Wireless‘ IT Director and DB Architect/Engineer, Ash Kanagat and Shivinder Singh, who will share their experiences and perspectives. I think this is going to be fascinating, and well-worth having to wake up early to get to the venue at 8:30 am.

10:15 – 11:15 am
If you develop with PHP, don’t miss Johannes Schlüter presenting Current State of PHP and MySQL, which will explain some of the relevant MySQL changes in PHP 5.4.

I am personally quite interested in the provocatively titled Big Data Is a Big Scam (Most of the Time) by PayPal‘s Chief Architect Daniel Austin. This is one of the more unique talks at this conference, so I will just paste the description here: “This session challenges the conventional wisdom and tries to dispel some of the myths about big data, NoSQL, and everything. When do you need a NoSQL system? How do you choose one from another amid the hype? And how do you know when to stick to your RDBMS and resist becoming a follower of big data fashion? Come and hear what you need to know about your options and how to make wise decisions about solutions to your big data problems.”

11:45 am – 12:45 pm
These days, you can’t talk about performance without talking about NoSQL. Andrew Morgan and John Duncan will present Developing High-Throughput Services with NoSQL APIs to InnoDB and MySQL Cluster, which explains how to maintain all the advantages of existing relational databases while providing blazing-fast performance for simple queries. This session describes the memcached connectors and examines some use cases for how MySQL and memcached fit together in application architectures. It does the same for the newest MySQL Cluster native connector, an easy-to-use, fully asynchronous connector for Node.js.

Everybody is security-conscious, with good reason. Joro Kodinov talks about MySQL Security: Past and Present, giving an overview of MySQL security in the past, present and future versions (with MySQL 5.6).

1:15 – 2:15 pm
Mats Kindahl will talk about Sharding with PHP and MySQL for distributing writes over a cluster, including static and dynamic sharding schemes.

Into NoSQL? Check out Ligaya Turmelle’s presentation on A Journey into NoSQLand: MySQL’s NoSQL Implementation. She will discuss how the memcached API is being used to hook directly into the InnoDB and MySQL Cluster (NDB) storage engines — skipping the MySQL server completely.

Want to know what those new optimizer features could look like for you? Don’t miss Øystein Grøvlen’s talk on Query Performance Comparison of MySQL 5.5 and MySQL 5.6. You’ll see comparisons using the DBT-3 benchmark, and explanations of which queries perform better, and why, in MySQL 5.6.

2:45 – 3:45 pm
Oracle ACE Director Ronald Bradford brings his talk on Improving Performance with Better Indexes to MySQL Connect. So often there is a problem in production that a simple index fixes, and developers should be indexing optimally from the start.

I am a tried-and-true commandline lover, but I know many developers love IDE’s and their GUI interfaces. If you are one of those folks, you might want to check out Alfredo Kojima’s Getting the Most out of MySQL with MySQL Workbench. MySQL Workbench can be used to write and debug SQL queries, manage data and schemas, create databases from scratch, or maintain existing ones through graphical enhanced entity-relationship (EER) models and the advanced SQL Editor functionality, which is all available in the free community edition of MySQL Workbench.

Alexander Rubin will talk about In-Depth Query Optimization for MySQL, which includes tips on how to explain and optimize your slow queries and how to make your reporting queries execute much faster than before. He will also discuss MySQL optimizer internals, show some benchmark results, and how to use the new performance_schema in MySQL 5.6 to monitor queries.

4:15 – 5:15 pm
If you like to know about upcoming features, do not miss Oracle’s Evgeny Potemkin session on Powerful EXPLAIN in MySQL 5.6. MySQL 5.6 offers several new additions that give more-detailed information about the query plan and make it easier to understand at the same time – including structured EXPLAIN in JSON format, EXPLAIN for INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE, and optimizer trace.

If you develop with MySQL on Windows, the Windows Experience Group is for you. Learn about the current and future features of the MySQL Windows Installer and Connector/Net, as well as the improvements for the MySQL server itself on Windows.

5:45 – 6:45 pm
If you use do text searching with MySQL, Sphinx‘s own Andrew Aksonoff has a session on Full-text search with MySQL and Sphinx*.

Bradley Kuszmaul of Tokutek presents Solving the Challenges of Big Databases with MySQL. I love that Bradleys defines what a “big database” is – “more than ten times as large as main memory”.

From 7 – 9 pm on Sunday, there is the Taylor Street Open House.

Next week I will write a blog post about MySQL Connect for DBAs. Watch for it!

* Actually, we just did a podcast series including the basics of FULLTEXT search on MyISAM and how FULLTEXT search works on InnoDB in 5.6.

MySQL Connect is a new conference with a lot of good technical content. In the past, it has been helpful to have guides of MySQL conferences, so in this post I will give my guide to MySQL Connect for Developers. Gerry and I did a lot of recommendations in OurSQL Episode 103, but that was before the schedule itself was up, so now I can present a list of session-by-session talks for developers who are building their schedules.

So heres a guide to MySQL Connect for developers, with times. Note that these are handpicked from what I think developers would be interested in. There are many more sessions than the ones listed here, so head on over to the Schedule Builder to build your own schedule:

Saturday, September 29th:
9-10:30 am
MySQL Connect Keynote: The State of the Dolphin by Tomas Ulin, VP and Edward Screven, Chief Corporate Architect, both of Oracle. I am pretty excited to see where Oracle is taking MySQL next!

11:30 am -12:30 pm
You are in luck if you are, or want to be, a Java developer, because there is a hands-on lab for Developing Applications with MySQL and Java with Mark Matthews. Hands-on labs are where you learn by doing, so this is not to be missed if you want to learn how to develop scalable Java applications.

On the internals side, there are a few good optimizer talks that would benefit developers. One is Olav Sandstås MySQL Optimizer Overview you will learn how MySQL chooses the optimal path, and by learning how MySQL does that, you can write better queries.

Oracles Geir Høydalsvik presents What’s New in MySQL Server 5.6? which explains the new features and performance enhancements in the 5.6 MySQL Server release candidate. I have a feeling they will have a new release version by MySQL Connect (another DMR? beta? RC?) and we will hear about all the new features in that release, too.

1 2 pm
Manyi Lu will present an Overview of New Optimizer Features in MySQL 5.6, talking about multi-range read, index condition pushdown, batched key access, and the new EXPLAIN features.

If you are a beginner, you will want to attend the Hands-on Lab Getting started with MySQL presented by Gillian Gunson and Alfredo Kojima, to learn the MySQL architecture, how to install and configure the MySQL server, and how to query and back up the database. You will also learn about error messages, accounts, datatypes, simple SQL statements and how to import data into and export it from the MySQL server. And remember, you are doing this all in front of a computer, because this is a hands-on lab. This hands on lab runs from 1-3:30 pm, so there is plenty of time to learn and do a lot!

As you probably know, InnoDB is the default storage engine for Oracle’s MySQL as of MySQL Release 5.5. It provides the standard ACID-compliant transactions, row-level locking, multiversion concurrency control, and referential integrity. InnoDB also implements several innovative technologies to improve its performance and reliability. Chunsen Sung presents 10 Things You Should Know About InnoDB, which is a brief history of InnoDB; its main features; and some recent enhancements for better performance, scalability, and availability.

2:30-3:30 pm
Alexander Rubin from Oracle has a session on the New MySQL Full-text Search Features and Solutions, including the new InnoDB FULLTEXT search*.

If you develop with Python, Geert Vanderkelen has a session about Developing Python Applications with MySQL Utilities and MySQL Connector/Python.

4:00 5:00 pm
Heard all the hype about MySQL Cluster? See for yourself what it can do in a Hands-on Lab presented by Santo Leto, Get Started With MySQL Cluster.

Or, head on over to a talk featuring Oracle and Amazon engineers talking about Using MySQL in the Cloud. The Amazon folks know their subject matter when it comes to cloud computing!

5:30 6:30 pm
If you are a developer interested in performance, Mark Matthews presents MySQL Enterprise’s Monitor for Developers the description says you will learn how to resolve potential performance and scalability issues revealed via performance graphs and query analyzer data from the Monitor feature of MySQL Enterprise Edition and apply them to your own application development. In addition, you will learn how to extend the Monitor feature with your own application-specific performance metrics to extend your visibility into performance issues into the deployment and operations realm.

If you are interested in migrating to MySQL from Microsoft SQL Server, do not miss Sergio De La Cruz Rodriguezs talk on Migrating from Microsoft SQL Server to MySQL: The New MySQL Migration Tool.

Or if you are a more security-focused developer, head on over to my own talk on Google-Hacking MySQL

6:30 8:30 pm MySQL Connect Reception in the Continental Ballroom

7:00 8:00 pm Birds of a Feather talks informal discussion sessions
I think these might be relevant to developers:
Python
MySQL Community
Query Optimizations

And it is only the end of the first day! The exhibit hall is open 9:30 am 1:30 pm, and 7 9 pm.

Sunday, September 30th
8:30 am 9:30 am
MySQL Perspectives Keynote featuring Twitters DB Team manager Jeremy Cole, PayPals Chief Architect Daniel Austin, Verizon Wireless IT Director and DB Architect/Engineer, Ash Kanagat and Shivinder Singh, who will share their experiences and perspectives. I think this is going to be fascinating, and well-worth having to wake up early to get to the venue at 8:30 am.

10:15 11:15 am
If you develop with PHP, dont miss Johannes Schlüter presenting Current State of PHP and MySQL, which will explain some of the relevant MySQL changes in PHP 5.4.

I am personally quite interested in the provocatively titled Big Data Is a Big Scam (Most of the Time) by PayPals Chief Architect Daniel Austin. This is one of the more unique talks at this conference, so I will just paste the description here: This session challenges the conventional wisdom and tries to dispel some of the myths about big data, NoSQL, and everything. When do you need a NoSQL system? How do you choose one from another amid the hype? And how do you know when to stick to your RDBMS and resist becoming a follower of big data fashion? Come and hear what you need to know about your options and how to make wise decisions about solutions to your big data problems.

11:45 am 12:45 pm
These days, you cant talk about performance without talking about NoSQL. Andrew Morgan and John Duncan will present Developing High-Throughput Services with NoSQL APIs to InnoDB and MySQL Cluster, which explains how to maintain all the advantages of existing relational databases while providing blazing-fast performance for simple queries. This session describes the memcached connectors and examines some use cases for how MySQL and memcached fit together in application architectures. It does the same for the newest MySQL Cluster native connector, an easy-to-use, fully asynchronous connector for Node.js.

Everybody is security-conscious, with good reason. Joro Kodinov talks about MySQL Security: Past and Present, giving an overview of MySQL security in the past, present and future versions (with MySQL 5.6).

1:15 2:15 pm
Mats Kindahl will talk about Sharding with PHP and MySQL for distributing writes over a cluster, including static and dynamic sharding schemes.

Into NoSQL? Check out Ligaya Turmelles presentation on A Journey into NoSQLand: MySQL’s NoSQL Implementation. She will discuss how the memcached API is being used to hook directly into the InnoDB and MySQL Cluster (NDB) storage engines — skipping the MySQL server completely.

Want to know what those new optimizer features could look like for you? Dont miss Øystein Grøvlens talk on Query Performance Comparison of MySQL 5.5 and MySQL 5.6. Youll see comparisons using the DBT-3 benchmark, and explanations of which queries perform better, and why, in MySQL 5.6.

2:45 3:45 pm
Oracle ACE Director Ronald Bradford brings his talk on Improving Performance with Better Indexes to MySQL Connect. So often there is a problem in production that a simple index fixes, and developers should be indexing optimally from the start.

I am a tried-and-true commandline lover, but I know many developers love IDEs and their GUI interfaces. If you are one of those folks, you might want to check out Alfredo Kojimas Getting the Most out of MySQL with MySQL Workbench. MySQL Workbench can be used to write and debug SQL queries, manage data and schemas, create databases from scratch, or maintain existing ones through graphical enhanced entity-relationship (EER) models and the advanced SQL Editor functionality, which is all available in the free community edition of MySQL Workbench.

Alexander Rubin will talk about In-Depth Query Optimization for MySQL, which includes tips on how to explain and optimize your slow queries and how to make your reporting queries execute much faster than before. He will also discuss MySQL optimizer internals, show some benchmark results, and how to use the new performance_schema in MySQL 5.6 to monitor queries.

4:15 5:15 pm
If you like to know about upcoming features, do not miss Oracles Evgeny Potemkin session on Powerful EXPLAIN in MySQL 5.6. MySQL 5.6 offers several new additions that give more-detailed information about the query plan and make it easier to understand at the same time including structured EXPLAIN in JSON format, EXPLAIN for INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE, and optimizer trace.

If you develop with MySQL on Windows, the Windows Experience Group is for you. Learn about the current and future features of the MySQL Windows Installer and Connector/Net, as well as the improvements for the MySQL server itself on Windows.

5:45 6:45 pm
If you use do text searching with MySQL, Sphinxs own Andrew Aksonoff has a session on Full-text search with MySQL and Sphinx*.

Bradley Kuszmaul of Tokutek presents Solving the Challenges of Big Databases with MySQL. I love that Bradleys defines what a big database is more than ten times as large as main memory.

From 7 9 pm on Sunday, there is the Taylor Street Open House.

Next week I will write a blog post about MySQL Connect for DBAs. Watch for it!

* Actually, we just did a podcast series including the basics of FULLTEXT search on MyISAM and how FULLTEXT search works on InnoDB in 5.6.