What to expect from the newest version of MySQL – MySQL 6.0
No modern website focused on the intuitive onsite experience of the visitors can exist without a good database at its backbone. Since the availability of dynamic content on a website has become a criterion for the website’s usability, boosting the amount of visitors attracted to its pages, database solutions are constantly evolving to keep up with the users’ demands.
So is MySQL – the most widely known and used database software on the web. With the users’ requirements getting more and more sophisticated – the software has been undergoing rapid development in the hands of its large supporting community ever since its launch to now approach the release of its latest super efficient new version – MySQL 6.
The latest stable version of MySQL is MySQL 5.1 and currently this is the version offered by most self-respected web hosting providers. However, just like any version of given extensively used software this version of the popular database solution is also about to ‘live its time’, giving way to a more advanced version that is intended to fill in its glitches and offer some brand new revolutionary characteristics.
Having announced the alpha pre-production release of MySQL 6.0, MySQL developers are now in a feverish preparations period, testing the new version and encouraging all users to take their time trying out its new functionalities in an off-production-level system environment.
In our MySQL 6 Preview article – you can check out in detail all new features, updates to existing functionalities and deprecated functionalities intrinsic to MySQL 6.0. Here are some of the best new MySQL 6 features you can expect from this soon-to-be-stable version:
- The Falcon Storage Engine – one of the most noteworthy MySQL innovations, designed to work with multi-core CPUs and larger memory architectures. Its basic features include: Multi Version Concurrency Control (MVCC), allowing table updates without locking table rows; optimization for modern multi-threaded environments, enabling faster transactions; on-the-go data compression, decreasing the amount of disk space used; data and data index caching, providing faster access to the stored information, etc.
- Backup improvements – another important function of MySQL 6.0 are the Database_Backup and Restore statements aimed at minimizing table locking during data backup and restore operations.
- New Unicode Character Sets – the newly added support for more Unicode character sets, like utf16, utf32, and the 4-byte utf8 will extend the range of information stored in the databases.
Along with the brand new features added, MySQL 6.0 also offers some significant optimizations and enhancements of the existing MySQL database features like the updated syntax for the LOCK_TABLES statement and the addition of a LOAD_XML, allowing for the data in an XML file to be inserted directly into a MySQL table. Also, the new MySQL software version is associated with the removal of certain obsolete or security-glitches related features from the MySQL core.
To get deeper into the basics of the upcoming stable version of MySQL 6.0 – take a look at our article, explaining in more detail the new features, enhancements and removed funtionalities. In case you wish to take part in the alpha-testing campaign – go and download your MySQL 6.0 installation from the official website. Mind that you are strongly recommended to back up all your database data when moving from any previous MySQL version to the new one.
Tags: database software, Falcon storage engine, MySQL 6, MySQL 6 Preview, MySQL 6.0, MySQL 6.0 installation, mysql database, MySQL table, new features, pre-production release, stable version