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News in General

Linux Foundation to Host Moblin Project

In the days leading up to Linux Collaboration Summit, the Linux Foundation (LF) announced it will host the industry's open Linux-based mobile project, Moblin. The announcement had been planned for the Summit but leaked early in a NY Times blog. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/intel-hands-over-the-keys-to-its-linux-operating-system/.

Created in 2007, Moblin is an open source project that supports Linux-based software and is optimized for mobile devices including netbooks, mobile Internet devices (MIDs), in-vehicle infotainment systems, and other embedded devices. Moblin is a technology framework that delivers visually rich Internet and media experience on low power devices.

In the current recessionary economic climate, these markets are among the fastest-growing in computing and Linux is increasingly considered the OS of choice for vendors who require better margins, faster time to market and custom branding. Started by Intel, the target processor has been the Intel Atom. Under the Linux Foundation, more processor families may be added, including the popular the ARM processor. This would make MobLin more strategic and less of an Intel-only play. However, most of the lead developers remain Intel employees.

The first developer meeting for the Moblin project under the Linux Foundation was the Collaboration Summit in April. Moblin 2, currently under development, was a focus there.

At the Summit, Intel revealed that the Moblin platform will be capable of a 5 second boot-up and that there are future plans for a goal of 2 seconds.

Fifteen operating system vendors have committed to distribute Moblin-based products, including Asianux, Canonical, DeviceVM, gOS, MontaVista, Novell, and Wind River.

For more information, please visit http://www.moblin.org.

Linux Foundation Adds openSUSE Build Service To Linux Developer Network

The openSUSE Build Service will be added to the Linux Developer Network (LDN), according to the openSUSE Project and the Linux Foundation at the Linux Collaboration Summit in April.

The Linux Foundation will be providing an interface to the openSUSE Build Service via the Linux Developer Network site, allowing the creation of packages for all major Linux distributions via LDN. The build service enables developers to create packages for CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ubuntu, in addition to openSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprise. The addition of the openSUSE Build Service to the LDN compliments LDN's popular AppChecker application, which enables developers to create portable applications for Linux.

The openSUSE project is also releasing 1.6 version of the build service that allows compiling packages for the ARM platform, used for embedded devices. The support for cross-architecture build support means that developers can create RPM or Debian packages for openSUSE, Ubuntu, Debian, and Fedora. This work has been contributed by 5e DataSoft GmbH, working as part of the openSUSE community to add support for embedded devices based on ARM.

Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier, openSUSE community manager, said, "This is the culmination of years of work by the openSUSE Project. The openSUSE Build Service has always been intended as a tool that would accelerate the general adoption of Linux. It's gratifying to see the build service becoming part of the Linux Developer Network and being embraced by the larger community.".

Jurgen Geck, chief technology officer at Open-Xchange, said, "openSUSE Build Service enables us to concurrently build Open-Xchange for all of the leading Linux platforms - making the process extremely efficient and guaranteeing a final product that is broadly compatible. The service is free, its underlying software infrastructure is released under GPL, so there is no lock in.".

The latest release of the build service also includes support for building openSUSE appliances, live CDs, installable USB images, Xen images, and VMware images. Developers can now create their own custom openSUSE distribution using the build service.

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. For more information, please visit http://www.linux-foundation.org.

Linux Foundation Announces "We're Linux" Contest Winner

A twenty-something graphic designer won a trip to Tokyo for a pro-Linux video as part of the "We're Linux" video contest sponsored by the Linux Foundation.

Amitay Tweeto, a 25-year-old graphic designer from Israel, beat out 90 contest entrants to win the grand prize for his video "What Does It Mean To Be Free?" Tweeto will receive a trip to Tokyo, Japan, to participate in the Linux Foundation's Japanese Linux Symposium in October 2009.

The "We're Linux" video contest started in December and encouraged Linux enthusiasts to create one-minute videos showcasing what Linux means to them and to get new users to try it. The contest attracted a wide variety of submissions and drew more than 100,000 combined views of the entries.

Two runners-up were also recognized. The winning videos can be viewed on the Linux Foundation video site:

• Grand-prize winner: "What Does It Mean To Be Free
• Runner-up: "The Origin"
• Runner-up: "Linux Pub"

A combination of community votes and a panel of judges determined the winners. More information can be found here.

LPI Revises LPIC-1 and LPIC-2 Linux Certification Exams

The Linux Professional Institute (LPI), the world's premier Linux certification organization (), announced the release of new versions of the popular LPIC-1 and LPIC-2 certification exams.

These new exams are available worldwide in English, German and Japanese through the Prometric and VUE testing networks. Chinese, French, Portuguese and Spanish versions of the LPIC-1 exams will be available through LPI Master Affiliates at special events and training partner exam labs.

G. Matthew Rice, Director of Product Development, who led the revision effort, expressed gratitude to the many volunteer IT professionals around the world who participated in the exam development process and provided input into a new Job Task Analysis, revised objectives and new items for the exams. "This global effort has meant that our exams are much more sensitive to non-English exam candidates and include a greater amount of questions around localization, internationalization and accessibility issues. For those involved in our program since the beginning this is an accomplishment of particular significance on our 10th Anniversary," said Mr. Rice.

Key exam changes include the following:

New Content:

• SQL Data Management
• Accessibility
• Localization and Internationalization
• Data Encryption
• More Troubleshooting and Security
• udev Device Management
• More Logical Volume Management
• IMAP/POP

LPIC level re-focus/consistent focus:

• LPIC-1 focus consolidates Linux usage and essential local system administration
• LPIC-2 has increased emphasis on Security and Troubleshooting topics and more consistent focus on System and Network Administration topics.

Improved objective weighting, numbering and other format changes to assist courseware developers and students in exam preparation

Minimized Content Duplication between exam levels

For detailed information on the LPIC program please see: http://www.lpi.org/eng/certification/the_lpic_program.

For more information on changes to LPIC-1 and LPIC-2 exams please see LPI's exam development wiki at: https://group.lpi.org/publicwiki/bin/view/Examdev/L1And2ChangeSummary.

For an executive summary of LPIC-1 and LPIC-2 changes please see: http://www.lpi.org/eng/content/download/1158/8034/file/REVISEDLPIC1&2.pdf.

Kernel 2.6.29 released, 2.6.30 RC2 available

The newest version of the Linux kernel includes new functionality and new files systems. A WiMAX network stack is also included for point-to-point connection.

The new kernel features the btrfs, the B-tree FS originally from Oracle, and squashFS, a read-only file system. Partly a response to Sun's ZFS, btrfs is built for massive, enterprise-level applications with support for files of up to 16 exabytes in size and up to 264 files in a single volume. The new file system comes with capabilities for snapshots, object-level mirroring and striping, and internal compression.

The squashfs consumes fewer resources and is often used by Live CD versions of Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and other distros as well as some embedded systems.

Kernel 2.6.29 adds kernel-based mode setting (KMS) which allows the kernel to control the graphics hardware and allows better initialization of displays by setting screen resolution earlier in the boot process. KMS can allow an X-server to run without root privileges.

Kernel 2.6.30 is expected to have support for the power-saving features in modern WiFi chip sets and additional fastboot code.

Kernel 2.6.29 and Kernel 2.6.30-RC2 are available at http://www.kernel.org.

Trusted Computing Group Announces Certification Program

At the RSA Conference in San Francisco, the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) announced a certification program to ensure that implementations of the TCG specifications are complete and consistent.

The program initially will focus on implementations of the TPM, which is the core of the TCG's security architecture for PCs and other computing devices. The TPM is used in millions of PCs, servers and embedded systems to secure passwords, digital keys and certificates used to protect data, email and networks.

For more details on this program, please visit TCG's website area on TCG certfication (http://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/certification).

Also at the RSA Conference, TCG announced it has formed two subgroups to help foster further adoption of self-encryption drives and network security based on the Trusted Network Connect framework.

The group also made available the final Storage Architecture Core Specification. The specification was previously introduced as a draft to the storage industry and has now been finalized. This specification provides details about how to implement and utilize trust and security services on storage devices. To review the specification or get more information, go to https://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org.

Oracle Buys Sun for Java and Solaris

In another major consolidation in the computer industry, one effecting several open source projects, Sun Microsystems and Oracle Corporation announced in April that they had a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun's cash and debt.

This will leave Oracle as the steward of many Open Source projects, including Java, MySQL, OpenOffice, OpenSolaris, and the GlassFish application server. Sun has championed its ZFS next-generation filesystem while Oracle has helped foster the btrfs project for Linux. More layoffs will follow the merger completion and many of these former Sun Employees are key contributors to these projects. There is also overlap on the Xen-based hypervisors and management consoles developed by Oracle and Sun, OVM and xVM respectively. Oracle expects to see long-term strategic customer advantages by owning two key Sun software assets: Java and Solaris. Java is one of the computer industry's best-known brands and most widely deployed technologies, and it is the most important software Oracle has ever acquired. Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle's fastest growing business, is built on top of Sun's Java language and software. Oracle claims it can now ensure continued innovation and investment in Java technology for the benefit of customers and the Java community.

The Sun Solaris operating system has historically been the leading platform for the Oracle database, Oracle's largest business. With the acquisition of Sun, Oracle can optimize the Oracle database for some of the unique, high-end features of Solaris. Oracle also remains committed to Linux and other open platforms.

But the fate of Sun's extensive server and storage business remains unclear. Industry pundit speculate that Oracle may experiment with fully integrated sales of servers and software, seeing how key partners like Dell and HP respond, or shop the hardware groups around for buyers like Fujitsu. IBM probably would have made a stronger commitment to Sun's higher end hardware.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, in a conference call following the announcement, said that acquiring Sun could enable Oracle to develop fully integrated systems. Since Oracle had partnered with HP late last year to produce and cross sell the high-end Database Machine and Exadata Storage Server, Oracle may now want to sell more integrated hardware and software systems.

Oracle believes it can run Sun's businesses at "higher margins" and net $1-2 billion annually.

"The acquisition of Sun transforms the IT industry, combining best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems," said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. "Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system - applications to disk - where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves. Our customers benefit as their systems integration costs go down while system performance, reliability and security go up."

"Oracle and Sun have been industry pioneers and close partners for more than 20 years," said Sun Chairman Scott McNealy. "This combination is a natural evolution of our relationship and will be an industry-defining event."

Questions remain for OSSw Community

Oracle had been maintaining it own Java Application Server as well as promoting the former BEA Web Logic Server. Sun brings with it GlassFish, in both open source and commercial flavors. Will Oracle maintain this as a 3rd Java server option?? GlassFish is the reference platform for Java EE applications. More importantly, will the ownership of Java by so large a software company as Oracle begin to deter other ISVs from committing new resources to Java application development?

This acquisition makes Oracle bigger, but will it be better?? Is Oracle trying to preserve the revenue its made running on Sun hardware by becoming the provider of Sun hardware in perpetuity?? Sun's effort to find a buyer had left several CIOs feeling uncertain about their Sun investments. Moving to Linux on X86 hardware also meant probably moving to their databases to MySQL or Postgres as Oracle replacements. Now Oracle becomes a one-stop shop and the proverbial 'one throat to choke'.

Oracle has been moving the traditional user conferences of its acquisition products into the huge tent of Oracle OpenWorld. Will JavaOne and the MySQL user conference experience the same fate?? Oracle OpenWorld already has over 40,000 participants. Adding JavaOne could push that to over 50,000 and may exceed the meeting capacity of downtown San Francisco.

Purchasing MySQL may have earned Sun some community cred, but it only netted some $38 million from the investment in 2008. Does Oracle expect to increase this significantly or merelyup-sell customers on the features of Oracle??

The Board of Directors of Sun Microsystems has unanimously approved the transaction. It is anticipated to close this summer, subject to Sun stockholder approval, certain regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

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Conferences and Events

SOA Summit 2009

May 4 - 5, Scottsdale, AZ
http://www.soasummit2009.com/

RailsConf 2009

May 4 - 7, Las Vegas, NV
http://www.railsconf.com/

CTST 2009

May 4 - 7, New Orleans, LA
http://www.ctst.com/CTST09

STAREAST - Software Testing, Analysis & Review

May 4 - 8, Rosen Hotel, Orlando, FL
http://www.sqe.com/go?SE09home

SOA Summit 2009

May 5 - 6, Scottsdale, AZ
http://soasummit2009.com/

EMC World 2009

May 18, Orlando, FL
http://www.emcworld.com/

Cloud & Virtualization Conference - Europe

May 18 - 19, Prague, Czech Republic
http://www.virtualization-europe.com/

Interop Las Vegas 2009

May 19 - 21, Las Vegas, NV
http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/

JavaOne / CommunityOne

June 2 - 5, San Francisco, CA
http://java.sun.com/javaone/

USENIX Annual Technical Conference / HotCloud '09

June 14 - 19, San Diego, CA
http://www.usenix.org/usenix09/proga

HP Tech Forum 2009

June 15 - 18, Las Vegas, NV
http://www.hptechnologyforum.com/

Velocity Conference 2009

June 22 - 24, San Jose, CA
http://conferences.oreillynet.com

SharePoint TechCon Boston

June 22 - 24, Cambridge, MA
http://www.sptechcon.com/

Gartner IT Security Summit 2009

June 28 - July 1, Washington, DC
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=749433

Cisco Live/Networkers 2009

June 28 - July 2, San Francisco, CA
http://www.cisco-live.com/

OSCON 2009

July 20 - 24, San Jose, CA
http:en.oreilly.com/oscon2009

OpenSource World (formerly LinuxWorld)

August 10 - 13, San Francisco, CA
http://www.opensourceworld.com/

VMworld 2009

August 31 - September 3, San Francisco, CA
http://www.VMworld.com

SecureComm 2009

September 14 - 18, Athens, Greece
http://www.securecomm.org/index.shtml

European Semantic Technology Conference

September 30 - October 2, Vienna, Austria
http://www.estc2009.com/

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Distro News

Ubuntu 9.04: Server, Desktop, Netbook Remix

Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix

In April, Canonical announced that Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix was free to download along with the simultaneous releases of Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop Edition and Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition.

Users can now download the complete Ubuntu Netbook Remix to a USB flash drive directly from Ubuntu.com. Users can then install and run Ubuntu Netbook Remix on a wide range of the most popular netbook machines available in the market today.

Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix has been fully tested for use on a range of netbook models including:

• Acer Aspire One
• Asus eeePC 900
• Asus eeePC 1000
• Dell Mini 9
• HP Mini Mi
• Toshiba NB100.

Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop

Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop Edition is also available, and delivers shorter boot speeds, some as short as 25 seconds. Enhanced suspend-and-resume features also give users more time between charges along with immediate access after hibernation. Intelligent switching between WiFi and 3G environments has been broadened to support more wireless devices and 3G cards, resulting in a smoother experience for most users.

Ubuntu 9.04 also features OpenOffice.org 3.0, a complete office suite that is compatible with Microsoft Office.

Ubuntu Server 9.04

Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition enhancements include improved virtualization with the latest KVM features, clustering support in Samba file server and easier mail server setup with out-of-the-box Dovecot-Postfix integration.

Canonical has also worked to extend the range of enabled servers for Ubuntu 9.04, with 45 of the most popular mid-range servers from IBM, Dell and Sun and HP tested in the Canonical labs.

Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition will also preview Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC). Ubuntu is the first commercially-supported distribution to enable businesses to build cloud environments inside their firewalls. With Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition, organisations can explore the benefits of cloud computing without the data or security issues associated with moving data to an external cloud provider. Following a successful beta program last year, Ubuntu Server Edition 9.04 will also be fully available on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).

Ubuntu Server includes a range of new and updated features to boost efficiencies for system administrators running large systems in production environments. New fully supported features:

• Ubuntu Server on Amazon EC2 helps businesses to deploy services to external clouds
• Virtualization updates, including support for nested virtualization on AMD chips
• New mail server features include shared user authentication and enhanced spam protection
• Samba 3.3 extended cluster support for file serving
• Enhanced integration between OpenChange and Microsoft Exchange
• Suspend-and-Resume features deliver power-management improvements
• Security enhancements with AppArmor.

Ubuntu 9.04 Server, Desktop and Netbook Remix can be accessed in a number of ways:

Visit http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu for a free download;

Visit http://shop.canonical.com to purchase a CD, flash drive or DVD;

Visit http://shipit.canonical.com to request a free CD

Novell Ships SUSE Linux Enterprise 11

In March, Novell announced the general availability of SUSE Linux Enterprise 11, a mission-critical Linux platform with complete support from Novell and its global partner ecosystem.

SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 contains major enhancements to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED and SLES) and delivers two new extensions: SUSE Linux Enterprise Mono Extension, the product that enables customers to run fully supported Microsoft .NET-based applications on Linux, and SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension, a clustering product that ensures uptime for mission-critical application.

SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 runs on the leading hardware platforms and will be certified and supported for Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). In addition, SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 (SLE 11) has been optimized to run at near-native performance on all major hypervisors, including VMware ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V and Xen.

Novell is delivering SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS (Just enough Operating System) and a suite of tools that enables ISVs to assemble a virtual appliance with just the pieces of SLE necessary to support their specific application. Uniquely, appliances that pass Novell's supportability algorithm will receive technical support for their custom JeOS configuration of SLE 11.

For deploying Linux in the cloud, SLE 11 will be certified and supported in Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). Currently, customers deploying Linux desktops have been able to obtain SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop preloaded from leading hardware vendors, including Dell and HP.

Novell also announced the availability of Novell ZENworks Linux Management 7.3, which extends policy-driven automation to SLE 11. Managing both desktop and server systems, ZENworks Linux Management makes it easy to deploy, manage and maintain Linux resources with advanced policies for desktops and servers. Buyers of SLE 11 will also be able to download licensed copies of the Likewise application for joining Active Directory domains in April or May.

Interoperability with Mono

Novell has engineered SLE 11 to work seamlessly with Microsoft Windows in the areas of cross-platform virtualization, systems management, identity/directory federation, document compatibility, Moonlight (Microsoft Silverlight on Linux) and desktop accessibility for the disabled. In addition to new support for Silverlight, SLE 11 features the ability to play Windows multimedia file formats and the latest version of OpenOffice.org Novell Edition that supports a range of Microsoft Office file formats.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Mono Extension is a new product that provides the first commercial support for the open source Mono project's application platform, enabling enterprises to seamlessly run .NET applications on Linux without having to recompile. SUSE Linux Enterprise Mono Extension allows organizations to consolidate their .NET applications onto Linux, dramatically saving costs. Novell is also offering the SUSE Linux Enterprise Mono Extension for customers performing mainframe-based workload consolidation.

SLE 11 now supports the swap-over-NFS (Network File System) protocol to leverage remote storage for local server needs and avoid costly application downtime.

SLED 11 and SLES 11, SUSE Linux Enterprise Mono Extension and Novell ZENworks Linux Management 7.3 are available now. SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS will be available in April and SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension will be available in the second quarter of this year. Later in 2009, Novell plans to release updates to SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service, SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time Extension and SUSE Linux Enterprise Thin Client.

Global Data Center Evolution Tour

Novell is also featuring SLE 11 as part of its around the world data center evolution tour. The first events will be in Boston and Irvine, Calif., and will also showcase solutions from PlateSpin Workload Management. For more information and to register for the tour, visit http://www.novell.com/events/tours/datacenter.

Opinions in the Blogosphere on SLED 11 and SLES 11 run both hot and cold. See:
http://blogs.computerworld.com/novells_marriage_of_linux_and_windows
http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow/?p=9716
http://content.zdnet.com/2346-17924_22-280506.html

Fedora 11 Preview available

After an engineering freeze and RC updates in April, the Fedora community planned to release the preview for Fedora 11 at the end of April. GA for Fedora 11 is expected at the end of May.

The F11-Beta-x86_64-Live-KDE.iso was re-issued on bit-torrent as well as to the mirrors. This image was accidentally composed with 32bit packages instead of 64bit packages. There also was a correction to the checksum on the mirrors.

More information on Fedora and the upcoming release is available at http://fedoraproject.org.

SimplyMEPIS 8.0.06 Update Available

MEPIS LLC has released SimplyMEPIS 8.0.06, an update to the community edition of MEPIS 8.0. SimplyMEPIS 8.0 utilizes a Debian Lenny stable foundation enhanced with a Long Term Support kernel, key package upgrades, and the MEPIS Assistant applications to create an up-to-date, ready to use desktop computer system.

The updated components on the SimplyMEPIS ISOs include recent updates from the Debian Lenny pool and also Linux kernel 2.6.27.21, Firefox 3.0.9, jbidwatcher 2.0.1, and gutenprint 5.2.3. In addition, minor tweaks have been applied to the MEPIS Installer and the MEPIS utilities.

Recently the MEPIS package pool has received new updates for Thunderbird 2.0.0.19, shorewall 4.2.6, tightvncserver 1.3.9, openswan 2.6.20, libvirt 0.6.2 virtinst 0.400.3, virt-manager 0.7.0, qemu 0.10.2 and webmin 1.460.

Founded in 2002, MEPIS LLC develops and maintains MEPIS Linux as a foundation that allows MEPIS business partners to build and deploy virtualized data center, secure server and desktop solutions.

ISO images of MEPIS community releases are published to the 'released' subdirectory at the MEPIS Subscriber's Site and at MEPIS public mirrors, and more information (and the download links) can be found on the project's page, at http://www.mepis.org/

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Software and Product News

Protecode Announces Release 2.0 of Its Software Intellectual Property Management Products

In March, Protecode launched Release 2.0 of its flagship software governance products to enable the safe adoption of open source software and the life-time management of enterprise code portfolios. The Enterprise IP Analyzer is a software solution that analyzes and accurately identifies all code in any directory, producing customizable reports on the licensing and copyright obligations, as well as other attributes of the binary or source code.

The Developer IP Assistant, available as an Eclipse plug-in, is the industry's first preventive tool for automated real-time software IP management. Release 2.0 provides enhancements to its IP reports and increases the depth and breadth of the pedigree discovery process in enterprise code portfolios.

Prominent among the new and enhanced features of Release 2.0 are:

• Automated tracking of licensing obligations throughout the enterprise code portfolio
• A structured pedigree map with enhanced reporting capabilities for large code repositories
• Advanced code snippet analysis through partial matching with open source and 3rd party code
• Extensive support for licenses and copyrights that are not part of the standard Open Source Initiative (OSI) repertoire

For more information, see: http://www.protecode.com/enterprise-ip-analyzer.php.

Sun Announces MySQL 5.4, MySQL Cluster 7.0

The key announcements at the April MySQL User conference included MySQL 5.4, a new version designed to deliver significant performance and scalability improvements to MySQL applications, and MySQL Cluster 7.0, a new release of its high-availability open source database software for real-time, mission-critical applications. New features include significantly enhanced performance and scalability; support for popular LDAP directories; and simplified cluster back-up and maintenance. Information on MySQL Cluster 7.0 - including downloads, evaluation guides, and performance benchmarks - is available now at http://www.mysql.com/cluster.

A preview version of MySQL 5.4 is available now for download at http://www.mysql.com/5.4.

MySQL 5.4 includes performance and scalability improvements enabling the InnoDB storage engine to scale up to 16-way x86 servers and 64-way CMT servers. MySQL 5.4 also includes new subquery optimizations and JOIN improvements, resulting in 90% better response times for certain queries. These performance and scalability gains are transparent and don't require any additional application or SQL coding to take advantage of them.

In the conference's opening keynote, Karen Tegan Padir, vice president of Sun's MySQL and Software Infrastructure Group, addressed the MySQL community:

"Without any modifications to your applications, MySQL 5.4 will transparently increase the performance and scalability of your applications, to enable them to scale under more demanding user and data processing loads. MySQL 5.4 is also better suited for scale-up deployments on SMP systems. Please download today's preview version and send us your feedback - we want this to be the fastest, highest-quality release of MySQL ever."

"Our initial tests of MySQL 5.4 show our application performance is up to 40% faster right out-of-the-box," said Phil Hildebrand, manager of Database & Deployments at thePlatform (www.theplatform.com). "We'll continue to follow this release closely for additional improvements."

Based on community feedback, an estimated release date for the GA version will be announced later this year. The preview version of MySQL 5.4 is currently available for download at http://www.mysql.com/5.4 for 64-bit versions of the Linux and Solaris 10 Operating Systems.

MySQL Cluster combines the world's most popular open source database with a fault tolerant "shared nothing" architecture, enabling organizations to deploy real-time mission-critical database applications reaching 99.999% ("five nines") availability. MySQL Cluster 7.0 can deliver predictable, millisecond response times while servicing tens of thousands of transactions per second. Support for in-memory and disk based data, automatic data partitioning with load balancing and the ability to add nodes to a running cluster with zero downtime allows almost unlimited database scalability to handle the most unpredictable workloads.

MySQL Cluster 7.0 features a number of new carrier-grade enhancements, including:

• Multi-Threaded Cluster Data Nodes for over 4x higher throughput on multi-core servers
• Dynamic Scalability with On-Line Add-Node - allows users to add new nodes to a running cluster with zero downtime
• Large Record Handling - delivers approximately 2x higher throughput
• Multi-Threaded Disk Data File Access - giving faster file access and response times
• Data Store for LDAP Directories
• Back-Up Snapshot Options - consistent single snapshot of data across an enterprise.

MySQL Cluster 7.0 is scheduled to be generally available this quarter under the GPL open source license for a range of popular operating systems, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SuSE Enterprise Linux Server, Solaris 10 Operating System, and Macintosh OS X.

Copyright © 2009, Deividson Luiz Okopnik and Howard Dyckoff. Released under the Open Publication License unless otherwise noted in the body of the article. Linux Gazette is not produced, sponsored, or endorsed by its prior host, SSC, Inc.

Published in Issue 162 of Linux Gazette, May 2009

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