Tuesday
Jan152008
Does Sun Buying MySQL Change Your Scaling Strategy?
Tuesday, January 15, 2008 at 11:59PM
Sun is buying MySQL for $1 billion. The MySQL team has worked long and hard so I don't begrudge them their pay day. Strike while the iron is offering a lot of cash I say. And I have nothing against Sun. Yet I can't help but think this changes the mental calculation of what database to use. When Oracle acquired Innobase a new independent storage engine was needed for MySQL. How is this different? Does this change your thinking any? Would Martha say it's a good thing? Like Luke I've searched my feelings, but the force is not with me and I don't really know how I feel about it.
Reader Comments (9)
Just posted my initial impressions at http://blog.dannyburkes.com/2008/1/16/the-sun-mysql-debacle. In short, to answer your question, it doesn't change the calculus yet, but given Sun's history of effing things up, I believe it will change the calculus eventually, and not for the better.
My gut reaction is that this *could* be good. A product idea that Sun is well-positioned to deliver is an easily scalable MySQL product, a bit like memcached but actually SQL running on Sun hardware. This would fit well with their storage moves.
On the other hand they could mess it up completely (I agree with dburkes thoughts above).
Regardless, isn't the price a little too high?
Pierre
I don't think it's a bad thing at all. MySQL has always been a private company. Likewise with Sun. But both believe in OSS strongly, and I imagine they'll both stay committed to OSS. I can actually think of a better company to buy MySQL. Unlike Oracle, Sun does not make any database products that I'm aware of, so I don't see this as buying out the competition. I think it's a natural synergy.
This is hugely good for Sun, for MySQL, and for most of the trends we see underway on the road to Cloud Computing. It shouldn't change you scaling strategy. In the short term, everything is as it was. In the longer term, MySQL will pull very far of the other open source DB solutions. However, it does mean that Oracle and Sun will be at each other's throats from here on out.
More on my blog:
http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/mysql-and-bea-oracle-and-sun-will-be-at-each-others-throats/
Best,
BW
Hi!
I think the question, which is as always, whomever gives engineers hardware tends to win in this question :)
I would not expect to see a change, MySQL has always run on Solaris/Linux/etc. Do not expect changes.
Cheers,
-Brian
Where did Sun get a BILLION dollars?
Anyway, as the tech lead on a website using MySQL exclusively, I can't really see any big changes in site. If Sun is going to fuck MySQL up, then that's off in the future. It will take them a while to do it - especially since they won't do it on purpose. Either way, MySQL 4 and 5 scale really well, and do everything I need them to do. I could work with those until something better came along if I had to.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the MySQL management actually improved Sun, rather than Sun dragging them down. In the corporate culture, being bought for $1 billion is like gold. Nobody can disagree with you, or they wasted $1 billion dollars on someone who's wrong. Who's going to admit to that?
SUN did good by openoffice/Staroffice, so one might think they will also do good by MySQL. Our infrastructures are dependant on MySQL and I am not worried.
Check out Jonathan's new blog post for more perspective on the deal:
http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/in_a_vortex">In a Vortex
Let's hope it's gonna have positive impact on SunnySQL development.