MySQL in the Enterprise

In the last few months MySQL has taken serious steps to have it play a larger role in the enterprise. For MySQL to take the next steps the following needs to occur on the technology side:

• Help customers understand the scalability of MySQL.
  
• MySQL needs to expand in the small to medium size data warehouse market. MySQL excels on delivering large volumes of Internet content at high speed. High read rates are what you need to make a data warehouse work. Using MySQL replication, organizations can scale horizontally at inexpensive incremental rates.
  
• MySQL needs an inexpensive striping and mirroring storage strategy to help organizations that can't afford an expensive EMC or Veritas solution. Hmmm, I wonder if there is a company out there who could help MySQL's storage strategy? :-)
  
• Organizations need to realize there are commercial open source solutions like Pentaho that can deliver business solutions, BI and reporting capabilities in the small and medium sized database environments. There are open source commercial solutions that can help MySQL environments deliver medium sized enterprise solutions. Saving 6 and 7 figures on licensing of software can provide a lot of flexibility in terms of hardware and software options.
  
• Organizations new to MySQL need a better understanding of how OS snapshots and InnoDB Hot Backup can be used to provide hot backups in OLTP environments.
• More MySQL DBAs that have an enterprise perspective. Oracle DBAs are the perfect source. Too many organizations look at MySQL and do not understand how to set it up properly to leverage what it can do.
  
• Organizations like Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Flicker, etc. know how to build highly scalable MySQL environments. Products like Memcache can greatly benefit MySQL scalability. Scaling MySQL is still a skill not known to a lot of companies.
  
• MySQL and industry analysts need more bench marks on exactly where MySQL reaches it's limit on the OLTP side. The knowledgeable industry expert understands MySQL has proven to deliver high read rates. For customers to feel comfortable using MySQL in more OLTP environments, customers need to understand where MySQL tops out on the OLTP side.