Yes, you read the title correctly — there are three editions of MySQL available, according to http://www.mysql.com/products/enterprise/server.html. Well, that page names two, and then of course there is the community edition….
From the manual page:
MySQL Enterprise Server is available in the following editions:
* MySQL Enterprise Server – Pro is the world’s most popular open source database that enables you to rapidly deliver high performance and scalable Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) applications.
* MySQL Enterprise Server – Advanced is the most comprehensive edition of MySQL. It provides all the benefits of MySQL Enterprise Server Pro and adds horizontal table and index partitioning for improving the performance and management of VLDBs (Very Large Databases).
How is “horizontal table and index partitioning” different from the regular partitioning available in MySQL 5.1?
Those of us that have been around for the past 3 or so years know that there was a point in time where there were two different editions of MySQL available, back when MySQL Enterprise and MySQL Community were actually different. But that experiment was a complete failure, and the code is now the same. MySQL Enterprise does package the software in a way that is not available to the community, specifically the quarterly service pack (QSP) releases. But the actual code….the same.
The pricing page at http://globalspecials.sun.com/store/mysql/ContentTheme/pbPage.categoryEnterprise shows that the Advanced server can be acquired for $3k (Gold) or $5k (Platinum) per year. The fee is worth it for the support MySQL will give you, but why is MySQL muddying the waters by having more “editions”, which very likely are not even different code?
(Special thanks to Aaron Macks for pointing out the existence of mysql-advanced, which was the impetus for this blog post.)