MySQL Cluster – Part 1: Pre-Sales Training in Boston

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MySQL LogoI went to Boston for 2 days of MySQL Cluster pre-sales training from Oracle at the old Sun campus on Network Drive in Burlington.

Although MySQL is one of the world’s most popular databases, MySQL Cluster does not have a similarly large open community.

To get the most out of MySQL Cluster, a company would need to either hire a DBA or database engineer with previous Cluster-specific experience, or pay Oracle for consulting, training and support.

Oracle has the following support options for MySQL Cluster:

  1. Online MySQL Reference Manual
  2. Oracle Pre-sales training (demos and unstructured training – free for Oracle customers)
  3. Oracle University classes (structured training classes)
  4. Oracle Consulting for Open Source products (Oracle Linux, MySQL Cluster, Oracle RAC) – any topics you want, including training, performance tuning and application debugging.
  5. My Oracle Support

I prepared in advance by reading the online manual and building a 4-node cluster, then spent 2 days one-on-one with a MySQL Cluster and telco expert who started with Cluster several years ago while at MySQL AB.

The topics loosely summarized were:

  1. demo of MySQL Cluster manager and online schema changes under a simulated load (on a Windows notebook)
  2. overview of use cases (telco and web)
  3. architecture
  4. database management
  5. differences with InnoDB.

Public transit: take the Logan Airport shuttle to the subway and disembark at South Station, take the subway to Alewife Station (9 stops), and take the MBTA bus 150/151 to Burlington. In Boston accent, “Pawk” = “Park”, and “Skaware” = “Square.” :)

One of the best views is when the bus crosses the Charles River, looking towards Boston Harbor.

There are at least 4 hotels within 1.5 miles of Network Drive.

Legal Seafoods, located throughout Boston, including the airport, serves excellent clam chowder.

Historic South Station

Congrats to Metro Silicon Valley for Airport and Nolan Bushnell Features

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Congrats to Metro Silicon Valley, a local free tabloid newspaper, for featuring two great articles in the previous two issues:

Bill Sherry Readies the New San Jose Convention Center

Like most cities, San Jose is not good at mega-projects. Fortunately the right man for the job was hired to make things right, Bill Sherry.

Thanks to the superb organizational skills of Bill, a new airport terminal and convention center addition were finished – without bankrupting the city.

Thanks, Bill. Enjoy your retirement! City Council should give you a permanent key to the city.

In an interesting twist, he crossed swords with the same ineffective local politicians who refuse to talk to the press.

(A debate could be made over whether a new airport terminal was needed at all. Nonetheless, $1.5 billion for a finished terminal vs. $4.5 billion for a hole in the ground is still better.

Airport analysts believe that San Jose will emerge as an airport hub in the next 5 years because SF is full, and Oakland would need major construction. Having built a new terminal means that the airport cannot be moved from downtown though.)

Nolan Bushnell: Pranksters, Poseurs & Crazies (Inside the Genius of Silicon Valley) Sept. 11-17, 2013 Vol. 29, No. 26

Nolan has some useful ideas on how to interview engineers, but I take issue with, “a whole cadre of people posing as chip designers would always leave the company or get fired before the chip ever worked.”

In fact, companies routinely fire their hardware designers on tape-out, so the career of a designer is like a game of musical chairs. Nolan and other executives are responsible for the exodus of talent before the chip is done, not the other way around.

Likely all Nolan had to do is announce that there was funding for a follow-on chip design to avoid high turnover.

metroactive.com: No Pain, No Game
wikipedia: Nolan Bushnell
Finding the Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Hire, Keep and Nurture Creative Talent

Supermicro IPMI Notes

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Some notes on using Supermicro IPMI terminal apps features:

  • the Supermicro iKVM Java App is licensed from ATEN (possibly UltraVNC-based?). It usually works on Windows, MAC OS X, Linux with Java6, though no window resize or cut-and-paste. Partly works with Java7, but virtual media ISO upload does not work.
  • iKVM ISO boot works fastest if you have a reliable network connection, expect to finish your work quickly and use menu option #1 (don’t use do_cache). Otherwise, do_cache lets you boot and disconnect. Then ssh in for cut-and-paste.
  • there is a stand-alone IPMI app, IPMIViewer, but it only works on Windows
  • if iKVM ignores input, you may have to do a power off to make IPMI responsive again.

WHT: Supermicro Java utility (IPMIViewer) Better alternative?

SVLUG: Krishna Raman on OpenShift

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Krishna Raman, a Red Hat programmer and technology evangelist, gave an overview of OpenShift PaaS and the underlying linux features used to implement it at the Silicon Valley Users Group (SVLUG) tonite.

The linux features used to create a jail-like environment are:

  • libvirt
  • cgroups
  • bind mounts
  • SElinux
  • netfilter (iptables).

Thanks again to Symantec for hosting the meeting.

wired.com: The Man Who Would Build a Computer the Size of the Entire Internet (Docker)
Microsoft Research: Drawbridge – “a new form of virtualization for application sandboxing”
Ubuntu: LXC
docker.com: Using vagrant with docker
How Mailgun Uses Docker And Contributes Back
The Role of Oracle Solaris Zones and Linux Containers in a Virtualization Strategy
FreeBSD jail
Linux unshare system call

The Downing of KAL Flight 007: 30 years later

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Chilling account of the Russian pilot who shot down KAL Flight 007 in 1983:

“I could see two rows of windows which were lit up,” Soviet pilot, Col. Gennadi Osipovitch, told CNN in 1998, describing the 747′s tell-tale double-deck configuration. “I wondered if it was a civilian aircraft — military cargo planes don’t have such windows.”

“I wondered what kind of plane it was but I had no time to think,” Osipovitch recalled. “I had a job to do. I started to signal to [the pilot] in international code. I informed him that he had violated our airspace. He did not respond.” The Soviets fired warning shots with brightly-lit tracers, said Soviet Lt. Gen. Valentin Varennikov.

Inside KAL 007′s cockpit, the flight crew appeared to be unaware of the Soviet fighters flying alongside. The pilot failed to react, the general said, and continued on course.

No attempt was made to contact the airliner via radio. The Soviet pilots failed to follow “ICAO standards and recommended practices related to the interception of civil aircraft,” the ICAO report said.

Soviet command gave Osipovitch his instructions. “My orders were to destroy the intruder,” Osipovitch remembered. “I fulfilled my mission.”

In this case orders were blindly followed. Fortunately in many other cases both Russian and American officers have analyzed situations before acting. I’ve heard rumors that VP Dick Cheney expected pilots to shoot down passenger airliners slow to land after 9/11, but was ignored.

The downing of Flight 007: 30 years later, a Cold War tragedy still seems surreal

CNN Cold War – 1988 Transcript