After my departure from Oracle, I received lots of emails and messages, people who asked me where I will land. Thanks to everybody for the kind words and the great comments. By the way, more than a landing, I am going to take off… :)
On October 29th I joined Ulf Sandberg, Kaj Arno and Mick Carney at SkySQL. I will lead the Field Services team in Europe, i. e. my team will help users and customers in designing and implementing solutions around the MySQL technology. This will be my main role but, as you may expect, in small companies (small compared to large Corporates like IBM or Oracle), you must wear many hats.
My long term goals have not changed: I want to serve the MySQL Community of users, developers and, of course, the SkySQL customers. I want to provide the best possible advise, the best services and solutions. I will be specifically focused on these aspects:
Continue to support MySQL as the de facto standard for online applications
MySQL is great for online applications, but it is far from being perfect. MySQL 5.5 and MariaDB 5.2 show significant improvements in terms of performance and scalability, more statistics and admin features. We are still a bit behind schedule with real improvements, like the adoption of new storage engines - specifically PBXT and more NoSQL-like engines.
Scout and implement solutions that will make MySQL really suitable for the Enterprise and ubiquitous in new areas
In one of my old posts I have explained the difference between the mindset of an Enteprise-focused IT Manager versus an IT team devoted to the cause of open source. Part of the work to do is based on evangelisation, but there are some technical aspects to cover as well. MySQL needs some extra features to be "Entperprise-ready". "Enterprise features" are not just sophisticated features, or "all the features you may think of". They are features that are necessary to sustain Enterprise software and tools. The debate around which features are necessary is meaningless, since every Enterprise is different. There is a set of features that is quite mainstream. In particular, we need to improve:
- Documents and Multimedia objects handling
- Security
- Analytical functions and large data analysis
- Data sharing and integration
- Security
- Analytical functions and large data analysis
- Data sharing and integration
These improvements are not necessarily related to deep changes in the server core. Most of the can be implemented as plugins or at a connection level. Security plug-ins, Analytical storage engines, XML functions and connectors are still valid options that can well provide great features without affecting the core of the server.
Also, many tools for the Enterprise would simply facilitate the development and the administration of bespoken code or third party software. Tools like graphical set ups and monitoring for HA environments, replication or data migration, and so on would be incredibly helpful.
Promote and participate in new ideas that can make MySQL even better
If we have freedom to think, why not be open minded and think bigger? 1 out of 1,000 ideas may be a great idea! The amount of tools, engines, appliances, services, components and other products - commercial or open source - that have been developed in the last 3-4 years around MySQL is pretty amazing. Projects like Drizzle, storage engines like Infobright and Infinidb, appliances like Kickfire are great examples of these new products. Many others are incubated at the moment and they will bright soon. Some of these products can make MySQL a real success in many areas currently ruled by expensive and legacy solutions.
Make MySQL an affordable and inexpensive alternative to the other databases on the market
What is #1 reason to not use MySQL? Put it simply, it might not fit with the required solution. In the Enterprise market, it means that MySQL may not be certified to work with 3rd party products. In other areas it may be that other databases are the mainstream for certain projects. But IT solutions are really changing. Cloud computing is a reality and #1 database is, again, MySQL. SAAS solutions are the fastest growing products in IT and again, MySQL is becoming more and more the favourite database for a combination of robustness, reliability, performance, and obviously cost of ownership. At SkySQL, I believe I will have the opportunity to address these markets and to provide valid solutions for the Cloud and SAAS companies.
Maintain independence and objective views on the solutions available around MySQL
Despite the suspicion of some users, my ex team and I have always provided an objective view of the possible solutions around MySQL. When we were clearly not in the right place, we simply walked away, saving everybody's time. I want to maintain this level of independence and objectiveness and even more, at SkySQL I have the opportunity to experiment even more technologies and to be 100% agnostic, under any circumstance.
Contrary to what I posted few weeks ago, I will not close this blog. izoratti.blogspot.com is my personal blog and I am going to use it to post comments and ideas. The posts will be mainly related to MySQL, but sometimes I will diverge by sharing my personal experience on other topics. mysql4all.wordpress.com is the place where I will post technical evaluations and suggestions. I will get help from other people as well - the main objective is sharing useful information. I will also continue to work with the MySQL User Groups in UK and Italy, now more than before.
As usual, my postings will not be very frequent. I will let many other people write great articles and share valuable information on a regular basis. Every now and then, I will pop up on Planet.
See you soon!
-ivan
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