MySQL Selected for Danish IT Research on Database Performance

Copenhagen University to Research Maximum Database Performance on Modern Computer Architectures Including Itanium 2 Platforms

UPPSALA, Sweden - (March 28, 2003) - MySQL AB, developer of the world's most popular Open Source database, today announced that the MySQL™ database is being used in a Danish research and development project that will explore how to improve database performance by better leveraging modern computer architectures. This project is funded by a Danish state research grant in cooperation with MySQL AB, Dell Computer Corporation and EMC Corporation. The University of Copenhagen’s Department of Computer Science will conduct the research.

The MySQL project is designed to facilitate collaboration between business and academia, as the results have a strong potential for innovation both in industry and at Danish universities.

“This research is a wonderful project for MySQL because while the approach is academic, the findings can be integrated into MySQL for better real-world applications,” said David Axmark, MySQL AB vice president of Open Source relations and co-founder. “The findings could lead to an even faster MySQL database, and it’s the first step toward a more advanced cluster version of MySQL.”

Copenhagen University's research will be conducted in the context of the Badger project led by database expert Philippe Bonnet, who has recently co-written a book titled, Database Tuning: Principles, Experiments and Troubleshooting Techniques.

This research will focus on several areas:

• Instruction cache utilization: how to improve the instruction cache behavior of a query execution engine?
• Disk subsystem memory hierarchy: how can database query engines best leverage cache hierarchy?
• Clustered, distributed databases: how can nodes in a cluster of workstations share storage devices with low overhead?

"We were impressed by the quality of the MySQL database, and being Open Source will make it easy for us to keep abreast of the latest MySQL features and versions," said Bonnet. "MySQL is already fast, and we are anxious to find out if we can make it even faster using the most efficient, powerful computing architectures. Our research findings should have a direct benefit to anyone who uses MySQL."

The results of the Badger project related to the performance of MySQL on Intel Itanium platforms will be made available through the Gelato foundation whose portal (www.gelato.org) is dedicated to providing users with the most current and useful resources for running Linux on the Itanium (IA-64) platform.

For more information about the University of Copenhagen's Badger project please go to http://www.distlab.dk/badger/

About MySQL

MySQL AB develops, markets and supports the MySQL database server, the world's most popular open source database. With an estimated 4 million installations and averaging over 27,000 downloads per day, MySQL is quickly becoming the core of many high-volume, business-critical applications. Major corporations such as Yahoo!, Lucent Technologies, Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment, Motorola, NASA, Silicon Graphics, HP and Xerox rely on the ultra-fast, highly-reliable MySQL database. MySQL is available under the free software/open source GNU General Public License (GPL) or a non-GPL commercial license. For more information about MySQL, please go to www.mysql.com.

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