MySQL®

Introduction

A relational database management system (RDBMS) is an essential tool in many environments, from traditional uses in business, research, and educational contexts, to applications such as powering search engines on the Internet. However, despite the importance of a good database system for managing and accessing information resources, many organizations have found them to be out of reach of their financial resources. Historically, database systems have been an expensive proposition, with vendors charging healthy fees both for software and for support. Also, because database engines often had substantial hardware requirements to run with any reasonable performance, the cost was even greater.

The situation is different now, on both ...