MariaDB Un(Conference) and ServerFest Schedule 3-5 Oct 2023

We are happy to release the schedule (https://mariadb.org/fest2023-schedule/) of our upcoming meeting week Tue-Thu 3-5 October 2023.

The week comes with meetings in four flavours:

  1. The MariaDB Server Fest presentations, directed at users of MariaDB Server. This is on Thursday 5 October 2023.
  2. The MariaDB Unconference presentations, directed at core developers of MariaDB Server. This is on Wednesday 4 October 2023.
  3. The MariaDB Unconference work sessions, interactions getting work done between MariaDB Foundation staff and core members of the ecosystem (including but not limited to MariaDB plc employees).

Join us in planning the MariaDB Server Roadmap

MariaDB Foundation is having its next planning session for the MariaDB Server Roadmap at our MariaDB Unconference Tue-Wed 3-4 October 2023.

All key contributors will be there

This will be a top-level meeting with representatives of all key contributors to MariaDB Server. From MariaDB plc, we will have CTO Jonah Harris and VP Server Engineering Sergei Golubchik representing management and resource allocation. But MariaDB Server is not a one-vendor product. We expect similar level representation from our second-biggest contributor, Amazon, and we also have confirmed roadmap attendance by Webpros, Alibaba, IBM, Intel, and others.

On yearly goals, plc woes and habits at MariaDB Foundation

When setting long-term goals, striking the right balance is difficult: Not too generic (fluffy), not too specific (micromanagement). Not too few (lack of challenges), not too many (overwhelming). Consistently focusing on core values, while adapting to changes in the environment.

MariaDB Foundation’s internal goal setting process for 2023 seems to be working out well – and some lessons learned may be of interest even to our community.

The most important lesson learned is about our half-year review.

Adverse conditions when planning 2023

We set our 2023 yearly goals in December, with an emphasis on the first half of the year.

The value of sponsoring MariaDB Foundation

Why does Intel sponsor the MariaDB Foundation? I had the opportunity to interview Steve Shaw, Principal Engineer at Intel and a Board Member at MariaDB Foundation.

I strongly urge you to look at the 09:34 long video on YouTube – Steve is well articulated and a pleasure to listen to. Still, here is a glimpse of what he goes into:

  1. MariaDB Server is incredibly popular software. Just the Docker image alone has had more than a billion downloads. The majority of MariaDB installations run on Intel servers and developers coding on Intel laptops and desktops.

Coming to a language near you!

In a movie theater near you, expect to soon see an explanation of MariaDB Server and MariaDB Foundation in your own language! That is, providing you speak one of the good dozen of languages we have frequently encountered in the MariaDB Server ecosystem.

English is a least common denominator

Like a majority of the MariaDB Server users, most of the developers behind MariaDB Server are non-native English speakers. We use Bad English as our lingua franca. Our pronunciation may be bearable to OK, but as with most techies, our understanding of written and spoken English is OK to good.

Multi-tenancy through catalogs in MariaDB Server

Let’s say you are a Cloud Service Provider, with many customers – each having many MariaDB Server users and databases. What if several such customers could share a single instance of MariaDB Server? That’s what we call the catalog feature, a feature that – if implemented – could potentially save lots of resources (and thus costs!) in a number of high-end use cases.

How the idea was born

At CloudFest 2023 near Frankfurt in March, we had in-depth meetings with a number of heavy MariaDB Server users – ones that one best would describe as Cloud Service Providers (CSPs).

CloudFest Reflections by mariadb.org

CloudFest in Germany, what an event! Thousands of representatives of cloud service providers and the surrounding ecosystem. Although MariaDB Server seems to be the database of choice in this realm, 2023 was the first year when we were more extensively present for CloudFest.

Check out our 11:19 long video with Monty’s and my reflections!

Chat with our founder Monty, Michael Widenius

Related posts:

Creating the MariaDB Health Check plugin for WordPress

ChatGPT, OpenAI and MariaDB Foundation

When everybody and their grandmother are talking about ChatGPT, you know something is happening – something with significance outside the usual IT bubble. As the first in a series of blog entries, let me reflect upon what AI means for users of MariaDB Server – or, at least, what implications we at the MariaDB Foundation can see at this point in time.

The AI revolution is inevitable …

Pundits say that lawyers or programmers won’t be replaced by AI – but they will be replaced by lawyers or programmers that use AI. I would agree.