MySQL® Database Design and Tuning

3. MySQL Overview and New Performance-Related Features

With an ever-growing market share and a continual stream of new software and functionality, MySQL AB’s products have made a dramatic impact on the technology industry. New versions, features, and functions are arriving at an increasing pace, but database designers, developers, and administrators might feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of products, along with how frequently they’re updated.

Although the primary purpose of this book is to help you coax the most performance out of your MySQL installation, you should first get the lay of the land of MySQL’s entire product suite. To help make things clear, each of the major products can be classified into a small group of categories. ...