Success -- MySQL / MyODBC install

[michael d hoskins]

Actually, look at these:  http://www.mysql.net/benchmark.html and
http://www.worldserver.com/mm.mysql/performance/ (be sure to read the
notes on HOW they got those numbers, though.)  Benchmarks are not real
world, but they can show trends, if they are fair.  The "crash-me"
benchmark seems to be pretty fair.  The benchmarks show that *overall*
MySQL nukes most databases, for speed.  There are a few tasks that are
slower.  There are some tasks that don't run.

I think crash-me is fair in that it:
Tries to simulate real-world scenarios...
Shows that mysql is slower at some tasks (many benchmarks won't
admit this)
Shows that mysql lacks certain features (many benchmarks won't
admit this)
The benchmark is designed for dozens of databases
Compares different hardware and software configs

This benchmark was designed for MySQL developers.  The goal of crash-me
is to truly profile MySQL's performance and features:  the good, the
bad, and the ugly.  Crash-me is so named because it can tax a database
so much that it can crash a database, or even an OS -- they've crashed
Informix and MANY others, before!  They want their benchmark to be
truthful, because they intend for MySQL to be the best RDBMS for
performance that you can get, and since they want to compare features.

MySQL's source code is truly an amazing example of optimization.  TcX
has been working on database products for small computers since 1979.
MySQL is a direct decendant of that history and of miniSQL/mSQL and
others.  Their history is an interesting read.  MySQL is small enough to
be embedded.

Overall, MySQL nukes Postgres, for raw performance.  Of course, your
mileage may vary, but you really can't argue with thousands of
real-world programmers who have tried several database combinations for
their environment, all pointing to MySQL for speed.  If you tune your
system, use certain compile options, use certain database features,
code, etc., you can end up with any result you may want to find for any
OS/RDBMS/hardware combination.  Just look at certain M$ benchmarks
concerning OSes and RDBMS....

The combination of Apache 2.0, Linux 2.4, PHP 4.0/Zend, PGCC, and MySQL
3.23 will be truly amazing, especially on good SMP hardware.  (Those
sinister Mindcraft benchmarks are going to be harder than ever to doctor
in favor of a certain unnamed server.)  MySQL is not only very highly
optimized, but to squeak out more performance, they recommend compiling
with threading and chip-specific optimizations enabled.

Yep, Postgres has a much better license -- always free, unless you want
support.  MySQL's license is confusing.

-----Original Message-----
From: frank [mailto:frank at wiles.org]
Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 12:09 PM
To: kclug
Cc: frank
Subject: Re: kclug - Success -- MySQL / MyODBC install

.------[ michael d hoskins wrote (2000/04/07 at 11:32:40) ]------
|
|  [...snip...]
|
|  MySQL had one main design goal.  They wanted to be as SQL compliant
as
|  possible (eventually) while having as much speed as possible.
They're
|  very close to that goal...  So, transactions, foreign keys,
replication,
|  etc. are gone.
|
`-------------------------------------------------

Last time I checked MySQL was only faster on SELECTs vs. PostgreSQL.

Granted, most database transactions are SELECTs, but if you're doing
a lot of data analysis on LOTS of data.  Slow writes become a big
pain.

The other main problem I see with MySQL is it's sometimes-free
sometimes open-source license.  I have a rule of thumb I use in
database development.  "If PostgreSQL can't handle it, then we need
Oracle or Sybase."

-------------------------------
Frank Wiles <frank at wiles.org>
http://frank.wiles.org
-------------------------------