System iNetwork

April 2007

April 30, 2007 12:05 AM

Massively Popular MySQL Open DB Coming to System i

The massively popular MySQL open source database is coming to the System i. IBM has partnered with MySQL AB, a company that boasts 11 million installations of the MySQL database, which is used in both large and small organizations. The company's database products compete with IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, and a handful of open source solutions, so on the surface, this seems like an odd move for IBM — what's wrong with DB2 for i5/OS, anyway?

There's nothing wrong with DB2, but it turns out IBM has a killer answer: DB2 for i5/OS will become a certified MySQL storage engine, which will let you implement online and transactional MySQL applications but store the data in DB2.

Basically, existing DB2-based applications will be be able to access MySQL application data, and existing DB2 data can be accessed by new MySQL applications. Here's a slide that shows the associations.

Here at COMMON, I caught up with Ethan O'Rafferty, who is the director of strategic alliances for MySQL AB, which has headquarters in Sweden and the United States. The guy, as you might imagine, is pretty stoked about the deal — IBM is, after all, going to resell the company's solutions worldwide.

What's really wild is that IBM approached MySQL AB, O'Rafferty noted. IBM's Mike Smith, who is the chief software architect for the System i, apparently got the deal started, and since PHP developers tend to be keen on the MySQL database, the move makes implicit sense.

In the first year of availability, PHP for i5/OS has been downloaded about 5,000 times. IBM System i General Manager Mark Shearer noted in the keynote at COMMON that PHP has been exceptionally popular in Japan, but he didn't get into other specific geographies or details. It's still hard to say how many of those 5,000 downloads represent significant development efforts. (I'll have to catch up with Zend here at COMMON and see if I can get something more definitive out of them.)

In any event, the MySQL move will essentially bring thousands of open source MySQL and PHP applications to the System i, not to mention a whole new set of developers and potential DBAs — see "When Pros Become Cons: The System i DBA."

In addition, there are a lot of sizable companies, including Google and Yahoo! that use MySQL for high-volume business applications, so the potential for solutions isn't limited to dinky little modules.

The PHP and MySQL System i efforts, Shearer noted, is "a great example of us trying to stay relevant with the technologies supported in the System i platform."

Your Thoughts

Here's a couple of questions for the i5 community:

• Do you have developers using PHP?
• Do you already have MySQL in use in your organization?
• Any thoughts on the viability of using a MySQL and PHP stack to head toward the Web? Think it might be easier/better than WebSphere on System i?

Posted by cmaxcer on April 30, 2007 at 12:05 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

April 16, 2007 2:08 PM

Welcome!

If there's one thing I've learned over the decade I've spent covering the AS/400, iSeries, and System i news world, it's that System i experts and the organizations they work for are a diverse group.

Sure, System i pros have a shared passion and a fierce loyalty to the black box, but there's definitely a wide variety of i-expertise out and about in the world. And these experts tend to have a diverse set of opinions and perspectives.

With Maxed Out, I intend to embrace them all.*

Some news stories are just that — news stories. They contain topics that are fairly straightforward and easy to get to. In one way, you can look at IBM's recent 515 and 525 entry level System i announcement as a basic news story.

But it's so much more than that, too. Part of the story is the System i world's reaction to the news, which is at least as important as the news itself. System i pros are invested in the platform, and because of that investment, we share a sense of community, responsibility, and a desire to see the platform continue to succeed. The 515 and 525 models are critical to new account growth.

On the other hand, what do these new boxes mean to existing customers? For many, they're too small to consider. For others, they represent a massive increase in horsepower — CPU and CPW, at least — and a whole new pricing model that may or may not work for their own organizations.

Dave Bauer sent me a note where he priced out an upgrade from an 810 to an existing 520 or a new 525. The new 525 came in $39,000 more expensive than a 520. Yeah, can you imagine what his client was thinking?

On the other hand, Bill Clark priced out a similar upgrade from an 810 to a 520 or 525 for 100 users and ended up with a 525-based solution that was more than $26,000 less than a 520-based upgrade.

So which is correct? Is the 525 a better deal or not?

It depends. Because of the diversity in the System i world, this is the kind of question that's best explored with a blog . . . so now you know why we've launched Maxed Out.

In future posts, I'll bring you a combination of news, opinion, and shared conversations with industry experts. Through it all, I encourage you to post your reactions, thoughts, and your own experience — whether or not it differs with my own.

The first big news I'll be covering will come out of the COMMON conference in Anaheim. If you're there, too, check in . . . post a response, and if you're not, feel free to offer up your perspective from the comfort of your office.

Best,

--Chris

* OK, perhaps embrace is the wrong word, especially since I typed the word "passion" in the paragraph above. I really mean include, even when I might disagree with someone's comments.

Posted by dcronk on April 16, 2007 at 2:08 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack