MySQL’s technical architecture, built as it is around the three tenets of performance,
reliability, and ease of use, have made the product extremely popular, both on and off the Web. According to the MySQL website, more than 100 million copies of MySQL have been downloaded and distributed to date, and 50,000 more are added to that total every day. MySQL software today powers a variety of applications, including Internet websites, e-commerce applications, search engines, data warehouses, embedded applications, high-volume content portals, and mission-critical software systems.
Web Applications
It should come as no surprise that MySQL’s primary applications today lie in the arena of the Web. As websites and web-based distributed applications grow ever more complex, it becomes more and more important that data be managed efficiently to improve transactional efficiency, reduce response time, and enhance the overall user experience. Consequently, a pressing need exists for a data management solution that is fast, stable, and secure—one that can be deployed and used with minimal fuss and that provides solid underpinnings for future development.
MySQL fits the bill for a number of reasons. Its proven track record generates confidence in its reliability and longevity; its open-source roots ensure rapid bug fixes and a continued cycle of enhancements (not to mention a lower overall cost); its portability and support for various programming languages and technologies make it suitable for a wide variety of applications; and its low cost/high performance value proposition makes it attractive to everyone from home users to small- and mediumsized businesses and government organizations. For these reasons and more, MySQL is a key component of modern web applications, particularly those built on the popular LAMP stack.
Wondering what a LAMP stack is? Well, the term refers to a set of open-source software components that are commonly used in conjunction with each other to build web-based applications. These components are
• A base operating system and server environment (Linux)
• A web server (Apache) to intercept HTTP requests and either serve them directly or pass them on to the PHP interpreter for execution
• A database engine (MySQL) that holds application data, accepts connections from the application layer, and modifies or retrieves data from the database
• A programming toolkit (PHP, Perl, or Python) that parses and executes program code, processes database results, and returns results to the client
Data Warehouses
As the opening paragraph in this chapter notes, businesses are becoming more and more intelligent in how they store, filter, and use information. Data warehouses are a key source of this business intelligence. Typically, data in a data warehouse is gathered from an enterprise’s internal information systems, linked, and stored for long periods of time. In its simplest form, this data merely provides a record of past events; however, it can also be “mined” to detect patterns, which serve as input into an organization’s decision-making. Speed of data retrieval is thus one crucial component of a data warehouse; long-term reliability is another.
MySQL scores high on both counts. It supports engine-level data integrity through the use of primary key and foreign key constraints. An extremely efficient querycaching mechanism dramatically enhances response times for queries that are called upon to retrieve the exact same data as a previous query. MySQL InnoDB table format uses asynchronous I/O and a sequential read-ahead buffer to improve data retrieval speed, and a “buddy algorithm” and Oracle-type tablespaces for optimized file and memory management. For data storage reliability, MySQL supports replication, a data distribution mechanism that places copies of tables and databases in remote locations to reduce downtime in case of a server failure.
Business Applications
As a reliable, feature-rich database server, MySQL also has applications in business, education, science, and engineering—a fact amply demonstrated by its customer list, which includes such names as Motorola, Sony, NASA, HP, Xerox, and Silicon Graphics. Whether it is small, embedded applications or high-availability data processing systems, MySQL offers the scalability and performance needed to achieve business objectives. The MySQL website states that “MySQL scales to deal with billions of rows and terabytes of data, making it suitable for a wide range of transactional and analytic applications.”
To take advantage of multiprocessor architecture, MySQL is built using a multithreaded design, which allows threads to be allocated between processors to achieve a higher degree of parallelism. MySQL’s clustering technology allows data to be distributed across multiple nodes to achieve greater redundancy, while its fully ACID-compliant transactional engine provides a high degree of safety from undetected data loss. At the other end of the scale, MySQL’s embedded server library has a 1-MB memory/4-MB disk space footprint and provides a multithreaded, cross-platform data storage engine for use in kiosk-style applications or appliances. Finally, MySQL uses a two-tier privilege system (at the connection level and at the individual object level) to ensure the security and integrity of its data, and supports the SSL encryption protocol for client/server communication.
Source of Information : MCGraw Hill - SQL the Complete Reference 3rd Edition
reliability, and ease of use, have made the product extremely popular, both on and off the Web. According to the MySQL website, more than 100 million copies of MySQL have been downloaded and distributed to date, and 50,000 more are added to that total every day. MySQL software today powers a variety of applications, including Internet websites, e-commerce applications, search engines, data warehouses, embedded applications, high-volume content portals, and mission-critical software systems.
Web Applications
It should come as no surprise that MySQL’s primary applications today lie in the arena of the Web. As websites and web-based distributed applications grow ever more complex, it becomes more and more important that data be managed efficiently to improve transactional efficiency, reduce response time, and enhance the overall user experience. Consequently, a pressing need exists for a data management solution that is fast, stable, and secure—one that can be deployed and used with minimal fuss and that provides solid underpinnings for future development.
MySQL fits the bill for a number of reasons. Its proven track record generates confidence in its reliability and longevity; its open-source roots ensure rapid bug fixes and a continued cycle of enhancements (not to mention a lower overall cost); its portability and support for various programming languages and technologies make it suitable for a wide variety of applications; and its low cost/high performance value proposition makes it attractive to everyone from home users to small- and mediumsized businesses and government organizations. For these reasons and more, MySQL is a key component of modern web applications, particularly those built on the popular LAMP stack.
Wondering what a LAMP stack is? Well, the term refers to a set of open-source software components that are commonly used in conjunction with each other to build web-based applications. These components are
• A base operating system and server environment (Linux)
• A web server (Apache) to intercept HTTP requests and either serve them directly or pass them on to the PHP interpreter for execution
• A database engine (MySQL) that holds application data, accepts connections from the application layer, and modifies or retrieves data from the database
• A programming toolkit (PHP, Perl, or Python) that parses and executes program code, processes database results, and returns results to the client
Data Warehouses
As the opening paragraph in this chapter notes, businesses are becoming more and more intelligent in how they store, filter, and use information. Data warehouses are a key source of this business intelligence. Typically, data in a data warehouse is gathered from an enterprise’s internal information systems, linked, and stored for long periods of time. In its simplest form, this data merely provides a record of past events; however, it can also be “mined” to detect patterns, which serve as input into an organization’s decision-making. Speed of data retrieval is thus one crucial component of a data warehouse; long-term reliability is another.
MySQL scores high on both counts. It supports engine-level data integrity through the use of primary key and foreign key constraints. An extremely efficient querycaching mechanism dramatically enhances response times for queries that are called upon to retrieve the exact same data as a previous query. MySQL InnoDB table format uses asynchronous I/O and a sequential read-ahead buffer to improve data retrieval speed, and a “buddy algorithm” and Oracle-type tablespaces for optimized file and memory management. For data storage reliability, MySQL supports replication, a data distribution mechanism that places copies of tables and databases in remote locations to reduce downtime in case of a server failure.
Business Applications
As a reliable, feature-rich database server, MySQL also has applications in business, education, science, and engineering—a fact amply demonstrated by its customer list, which includes such names as Motorola, Sony, NASA, HP, Xerox, and Silicon Graphics. Whether it is small, embedded applications or high-availability data processing systems, MySQL offers the scalability and performance needed to achieve business objectives. The MySQL website states that “MySQL scales to deal with billions of rows and terabytes of data, making it suitable for a wide range of transactional and analytic applications.”
To take advantage of multiprocessor architecture, MySQL is built using a multithreaded design, which allows threads to be allocated between processors to achieve a higher degree of parallelism. MySQL’s clustering technology allows data to be distributed across multiple nodes to achieve greater redundancy, while its fully ACID-compliant transactional engine provides a high degree of safety from undetected data loss. At the other end of the scale, MySQL’s embedded server library has a 1-MB memory/4-MB disk space footprint and provides a multithreaded, cross-platform data storage engine for use in kiosk-style applications or appliances. Finally, MySQL uses a two-tier privilege system (at the connection level and at the individual object level) to ensure the security and integrity of its data, and supports the SSL encryption protocol for client/server communication.
Source of Information : MCGraw Hill - SQL the Complete Reference 3rd Edition
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