MySQL is the world's most widely used open-source relational database management system. MySQL is a popular choice of database for use in web applications, and is a central component of the widely used LAMP open source web application software stack (and other 'AMP' stacks). LAMP is an acronym for "Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP/Python." Free-software-open source projects that require a full-featured database management system often use MySQL.

For commercial use, several paid editions are available, and offer additional functionality. , and offer additional functionality. Applications which use MySQL databases include: TYPO3, MODx, Joomla, WordPress, phpBB, MyBB, Drupal and other software. MySQL is also used in many high-profile, large-scale websites, including Wikipedia, Google (though not for searches), Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube.

MySQL is easy to use, yet extremely powerful, secure, and scalable. And because of its small size and speed, it is the ideal database solution for Web sites. Some of its advantages include the following:

It's easy to use

While a basic knowledge of SQL is required—and most relational databases require the same knowledge—MySQL is very easy to use. With only a few simple SQL statements, you can build and interact with MySQL. Written in C and C++. Tested with a broad range of different compilers. Works on many different platforms. For portability, uses CMake in MySQL 5.5 and up. Previous series use GNU Automake, Autoconf, and Libtool. Tested with Purify (a commercial memory leakage detector) as well as with Valgrind, a GPL tool. Uses multi-layered server design with independent modules. Designed to be fully multi-threaded using kernel threads, to easily use multiple CPUs if they are available. Provides transactional and nontransactional storage engines. Uses very fast B-tree disk tables (MyISAM) with index compression. Designed to make it relatively easy to add other storage engines. This is useful if you want to provide an SQL interface for an in-house database. Uses a very fast thread-based memory allocation system. Executes very fast joins using an optimized nested-loop join. Implements in-memory hash tables, which are used as temporary tables. Implements SQL functions using a highly optimized class library that should be as fast as possible. Usually there is no memory allocation at all after query initialization. Provides the server as a separate program for use in a client/server networked environment, and as a library that can be embedded (linked) into standalone applications. Such applications can be used in isolation or in environments where no network is available.

It's secure

MySQL includes solid data security layers that protect sensitive data from intruders. Rights can be set to allow some or all privileges to inpiduals. Passwords are encrypted.

It's inexpensive

MySQL is included for free with NetWare® 6.5 and available by free download from MySQL Web site.

It's fast

In the interest of speed, MySQL designers made the decision to offer fewer features than other major database competitors, such as Sybase* and Oracle*. However, despite having fewer features than the other commercial database products, MySQL still offers all of the features required by most database developers.

It's scalable

Support for large databases. There are users of MySQL Server with databases that contain 50 million records. Also users are found who use MySQL Server with 200,000 tables and about 5,000,000,000 rows. Support for up to 64 indexes per table (32 before MySQL 4.1.2). Each index may consist of 1 to 16 columns or parts of columns. The maximum index width is 767 bytes for InnoDB tables, or 1000 for MyISAM; before MySQL 4.1.2, the limit is 500 bytes. An index may use a prefix of a column for CHAR, VARCHAR, BLOB, or TEXT column types.

It manages memory very well

MySQL server has been thoroughly tested to prevent memory leaks.

It supports Novell Cluster Services

MySQL on NetWare runs effectively with Novell® Cluster Services™, letting you add your database solution to a Novell cluster. If one server goes down, MySQL on an alternate server takes over and your customers won't know that anything happened.

It runs on many operating systems

MySQL runs on many operating systems, including Novell NetWare, Windows* Linux*, many varieties of UNIX* (such as Sun* Solaris*, AIX, and DEC* UNIX), OS/2, FreeBSD*, and others.

It supports several development interfaces

Development interfaces include JDBC, ODBC, and scripting (PHP and Perl), letting you create database solutions that run not only in your NetWare 6.5 environment, but across all major platforms, including Linux, UNIX, and Windows.

It supports localization

The server can provide error messages to clients in many languages. Full support for several different character sets, including latin1 (cp1252), german, big5, ujis, and more. Unicode support is available as of MySQL 4.1. All data is saved in the chosen character set. Sorting and comparisons are done according to the chosen character set and collation (using latin1 and Swedish collation by default). It is possible to change this when the MySQL server is started. MySQL Server supports many different character sets that can be specified at compile time and runtime. As of MySQL 4.1, the server time zone can be changed dynamically, and inpidual clients can specify their own time zone.

It supports clients and Tools

MySQL includes several client and utility programs. These include both command-line programs such as mysqldump and mysqladmin, and graphical programs such as MySQL Workbench. MySQL Server has built-in support for SQL statements to check, optimize, and repair tables. These statements are available from the command line through the mysqlcheck client. MySQL also includes myisamchk, a very fast command-line utility for performing these operations on MyISAM tablesMySQL programs can be invoked with the --help or -? option to obtain online assistance.

SOURCE: INTERNET