Today (August 1st 2008) I started write a series of articles to be referenced in my MySQL™ 5.1 Use Case Report that I will submit later this month to the Community Team for the MySQL™ 5.1 Use Case Competition.

I guess UC Reports should contain real world use of MySQL™ 5.1. So if I am not mistaken you can submit a Report on partitioning, for instance, if you are using v. 5.1 because you need partitioning and you can include in your Report the reason you needed partitioning and a description of your development and deployment environment.

Now, I am not using Partitioning (or Events or Plugins) because I *need* partitioning in my production system for a specific reason. I am a developer so I developed software on those features ;-). So I will submit some posts about new features of the version 5.1 and let others decide if my stuff can be qualified for the competition or not.

The posts already on-line are:

1. Using Federated Server in MySQL™ 5.1
2. Using Scheduled Events in MySQL™ 5.1

Next posts will be:

1. Using Plugins in MySQL™ 5.1
2. Using Partitioning in MySQL™ 5.1
3. Using Table Logging in MySQL™ 5.1
4. Using Cluster Disk Data in MySQL™ 5.1

Contents are subject to change.

There will be 3 conferences in Europe for Customers and Users:

• MySQL™ Northern Europe Customer Conference
  London - Thursday, October 23, 2008
• MySQL™ Central Europe Customer Conference
  Munich - Tuesday, October 21, 2008
• MySQL™ Southern Europe Customer Conference
  Paris - Wednesday, November 19, 2008

As usual there is an early bird discount if you register until August 31st.

More details on http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/european-conferences/2008/.

I will attend the Central Europe Conference, barring accidents. Here’s a map from Google™:

View Larger Map

To be honest, I got some difficulties some weeks ago when I registered because the registration page wasn’t entirely translated in English and, despite I would learn it, I don’t understand German :(

Same problem when I tried to read the Agenda in more details… (Why don’t you translate it in English too?)

Feel free to post a comment if you are from Italy, Slovenia or Croatia and you would like to attend the Central Europe Conference too. We can meet in Trieste to head together to Germany : )

See you there!

..aka how to spend a magnificent Sunday-Monday in SUN’s company :)

If your applications run on Windows™ and you need a MySQL™ Cluster for testing purposes you can use Virtual Box to install SUN Solaris™  10 and set up the Database Cluster creating 4 Solaris™ Zones (4 IP are required for a minimal Cluster setup).

It’s an interesting scenario.

You will need:

• Virtual Box
• Solaris™ 10
• the binary distribution of MySQL™ Cluster for Solaris™

You can create the Solaris™ Zones manually or you can create them at once using a script file.

Note that you don’t need to install 4 Operating Systems. You’ll install 1 Solaris™ 10 and then 4 Zones, each with a different IP: one for the MGT Node, one for the SQL Node, one for the Data Node 1 and one for the Data Node 2.

To get started with Solaris™ Zones, I followed a very useful article by a Sun blogger - “Setting up MySQL Cluster using Solaris Zone”.

Unfortunately, after setting up Solaris™ 10 and the Database Cluster I was not able to connect through SSH to the SQL Node from my Vista™ machine, thus my Cluster was up, running but isolated and unreachable as well :(

After a long pause I got the idea for the solution of the issue (it’s typical): I forgot the configuration of port forwarding with NAT in the Solaris™ 10 Guest System.

…The disadvantage of NAT mode is that, much like a private network behind a router, the virtual machine is invisible and unreachable from the outside internet; you cannot run a server this way unless you set up port forwarding..

ummh.. always RTFM (and check it again, and again…)!

I set up the port forwarding with the commands:

C:\Program Files\Sun\xVM VirtualBox>VBoxManage.exe setextradata “Solaris-10″ “VB
oxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/guestssh/Protocol” TCP
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 1.6.2
(C) 2005-2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved.

C:\Program Files\Sun\xVM VirtualBox>VBoxManage.exe setextradata “Solaris-10″ “VB
oxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/guestssh/GuestPort” 22
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 1.6.2
(C) 2005-2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved.

C:\Program Files\Sun\xVM VirtualBox>VBoxManage.exe setextradata “Solaris-10″ “VB
oxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/guestssh/HostPort” 2222
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 1.6.2
(C) 2005-2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved.

However since making this change the Solaris™ Guest did not start anymore and I got the following error:

Configuration error: Failed to get the “MAC” value.
VBox status code: -2103 (VERR_CFGM_VALUE_NOT_FOUND).

I found some posts - like this  - but they didn’t help me.

Conclusion: it’s 4:20 am and I am still looking for a solution to get my Cluster reachable, wondering why I want to use Solaris™ before attending an intensive SUN Training ;-)

I really want to figure out why if I set up the port forwarding for SSH Connections the Guest does not start.. but.. I’d go to bed ;-)

I’ll try to comment in the next days after getting help from VB guru :)

Great conference yesterday at “La Sapienza” University in Rome with Marten Mickos and the Italian Team of Sun | MySQL.

I’ve just returned in Triest, my hometown, after 8 hours :( train ride.

Slides should be available the next week, here.

Marten, thank you for coming, I hope to see you in Italy once again!

I will be in Rome on May 30 to attend the meeting with Marten Mickos.
Giuseppe has posted a translation of the official announcement of the event, here.

I will be there as a member of the Community and as CTO of HoneySoftware (an Italian ISV, MySQL® Enterprise Ready Partner).

I am wondering if there will be also a meeting in the morning with customers (as Giuseppe posted) or not: the official agenda starts only at 4:30 pm.

See you there!

Last Sunday I was in Pula, the largest city in Istria, Croatia.

T’was a one day trip; Pula is about 110 Km far from Trieste.
I was there with my friends Perla, Michele, Igor, Barbara and Sara.

I’ve uploaded few photos on Flickr®, here - I will upload the entire set during the next weeks (I am waiting for a new ADSL line - I’m now using GPRS).

2008 was announced as the year of the *change*.

On February I started work on performance tuning features and I planned those two new Editions of HoneyMonitor (Pro and Audit Pro).

On March I returned back to Trieste - my University town - after a two-year-full-immersion experience at HoneySoftware, in Caltagirone, where I forgot all the job-not-related aspects of the human life.

On April, meeting my (old and new) friends, going to cinema and doing things like those, I recovered my social life.

I removed the password protection from my blog, I announced HoneyMonitor Audit Pro (publishing 150+ screenshots of that Edition), I removed some out-of-date pages of our site and, yes, I got my first MySQL® not-a-bug.

I also have changed my residence, make my hair shorter and bought new glasses.

;-)

Now, the real question is: what does it mean ’sconvolgente’? and why ’sconvolgente’?

Here’s some reasons for the ‘upsetting’ word.

On January 16 Sun acquires MySQL AB for 1B USD. That news upset me.

A night, on February, I created this image, and it upset me {How many line of code have you ever wrote for just an image you have created after dinner :( ?}.

‘Santo, you upset me’, said R. - again and again - few weeks ago after she talked with me for about 8 hours, till 8 A.M., about all you can talk over with a girl the first time you meet her.

‘Santo, I’m upset’, said F. after he saw the new Home Page (he was referring to the new ‘Audit Pro’ screenshots and the new HoneyMonitor Features Matrix).

So, after all I can really say that ‘upsetting’ was a recurring word of the last months ;-)

May and June, what are you reserving to me? Marten, maybe…do you plan to have another Mike Zinner in 2008  :)  ?