joerg's blog

Most (relational) DBAs and DB application developers know the concept of a primary key ("PK") and what it is good for. However, much too often one still encounters table definitions without a PK. True, the relational theory based on sets does not need a PK, and all operations (insert, select, update, delete) can also be done on tables for which no PK was defined. If performance doesn't matter (or the data volume is small, a typical situation in tests), the lack of a PK does not immediately cause negative consequences.

Typically, on a single machine (be it a physical or a virtual one) only a single MySQL instance (process) is running. This is perfectly ok for all those situations where a single instance is sufficient, like for storing small amounts of data (RedHat using MySQL for postfix, KDE using it for akonadi, ...), as well as those where a dedicated machine per MySQL instance is appropriate (high CPU load, memory fully loaded, availability requirements).

Time flies, and my blogging frequency is quite low. More frequent would be better, but knowing myself I'll rather not promise anything ;-)

Still, it is appropriate to write some notes about CeBIT, the "Chemnitzer Linuxtage 2016", and future events.

CeBIT

CeBIT was running from March 14 to 18 (Monday till Friday) in Hannover, Germany, and I will leave the general assessment to the various marketing departments as well as to the regular visitors (to which I do not belong).

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xfs Users, Take Care!

Recently, we had a customer ask: Why do many files holding my data take up vastly more space than their size is? That question may sound weird to you, but it is for real, and the customer's observation was correct. For a start, let's make sure we are using the same terms.

"Split Brain" is the term commonly used for a cluster whose nodes have different contents, rather than identical as they should have. Typically, a "split brain" situation is the DBA's nightmare, and the Galera software is designed to avoid it. Galera is very successful in that avoidance, and it needs some special steps by the DBA to achieve "split brain". Here is how to do it - or, for most DBAs, what to avoid doing to not get a split-brain cluster.

Galera's Design

First, let's remember how Galera is operating:

The press, be it the general daily newspaper or the computer magazines, is currently informing the public about an upcoming leap second, which will be taken in the night from June 30 to July 1 at 00:00:00 UTC. While we Europeans will enjoy our well-deserved sleep then, this will be at 5 PM (17:00) local time on June 30 for Califormia people, and during the morning of July 1 for people in China, Japan, Korea, or Australia. (Other countries not mentioned for the sake of brevity.)

At FromDual, we are currently preparing for our participation in the "Chemnitzer Linux-Tage" in March.
While we don't yet know whether the programme committee accepted our proposed talks, we will have a booth and hope for interesting exchanges with others from the MySQL, database, Linux, ... world. Of course, we will also mention that we are looking for additional colleagues - there are so many tasks that we need more people to handle them all.

Often, in such introductions people use the phrase of "the new kid on the block". I won't. If I am to use those words, I will arrange them as "the kid on the new block".