Falcon to be the major piece of MySQL 6.0

By China Martens, IDG News Service, 04/26/07

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The most significant development in the next major release of MySQL AB's open-source database, MySQL 6.0, will be the inclusion of the vendor's homegrown Falcon storage engine, according to company CEO Marten Mickos.

This week at MySQL's user conference in Santa Clara, California, the company demonstrated a new alpha version of Falcon. The first alpha release debuted in January.

MySQL developed Falcon in response to Oracle Corp.'s surprise acquisition of Finnish startup Innobase in October 2005. Oracle's purchase was seen by many observers as a predatory strike against MySQL, which bundles Innobase's InnoDB storage engine with its database. The acquisition also prompted MySQL to open up its database storage API (application programming interface) to third parties so companies could create their own storage engines.

Mickos didn't provide dates for the beta release of Falcon or when MySQL 6.0 and the general availability version of Falcon will appear. MySQL reached a tipping point with Falcon's performance capabilities last week after the team developing the storage engine eliminated priority-one bugs from the software, he said.

MySQL is currently delivering the fruits of last year's focus on internal development, Mickos said. During 2006, the vendor worked on Falcon, its database monitoring and advisory service, formerly code-named "Merlin," and a project to fix bugs and improve the quality of its code.

Mickos said he definitely intends to take MySQL public, but added there's no timeline for an initial public offering (IPO). Though an important event in the company's evolution, Mickos called it "just a step in our growth." While going public might not cut much ice with MySQL's existing customer base, he believes the additional comfort factor an IPO can provide for those wary of an open-source startup will make more new customers available to the vendor.

Another way of growing customer numbers, particularly those willing to pay for support, is through partnerships with other vendors. Mickos sees partners as key to the ongoing success of MySQL. One of the major announcements at the conference was a partnership with rival database player IBM Corp. The tie-up will allow users of IBM's System i servers to run MySQL's database and let IBM and its resellers sell service and support subscriptions for MySQL. At the same time, the System i version of IBM's DB2 database will be certified as a storage engine for MySQL.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

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