10.7.0 Comes As Preview Releases

Now is the time to try out the new candidate features of MariaDB Server 10.7, the next release series of MariaDB! This blog describes how the new preview releases work, and where we need your help as a MariaDB user.

The challenge: Making MariaDB mature quicker

Remember the challenges and visions I described two weeks ago? To address them we launch an experiment with several parallel preview releases of MariaDB Server 10.7 features.

This should solve two challenges mentioned in the blog: giving users early access to new functionality and making releases mature more rapidly through intensive internal testing.

Webinar: AI in MariaDB with MindsDB

MindsDB is an AutoML framework that lets software engineers do machine learning, without having to go through the whole data science pipeline. Additionally, MindsDB has done a seamless integration with MariaDB, by making use of the Connect Storage Engine.

If you want to learn more about how you can do AI straight from inside MariaDB, register for the webinar on 18th of May 16:00 GMT. MariaDB Foundation, together with MindsDB will cover the following topics in detail:

  • Why AI inside the database makes sense
  • How MariaDB is built to facilitate AI integrations.

MariaDB HA MiniFest Wed 24 Mar 2021

Mark your calendar on Wednesday 24 March 2021! Topic: the MariaDB Server MiniFest on High Availability. We have a number of high-profile presenters already lined up, to present the various HA solutions in MariaDB. Our goal: to help you pick the best one.

Role model: The Server Minifest in Dec 2020

The HA MiniFest follows the format of our Dec 2020 MariaDB Server MiniFest on the Release Policy. We start at 14:00 Paris time (CET) – 9:00am New York, 21:00 Beijing.

Machine Learning straight through SQL

Machine learning is one area that cannot succeed without data. Traditionally, machine learning frameworks read it from CSV files or similar data sources. This brings an interesting set of challenges because in most cases the data is stored in databases, not simple raw files. It takes time and effort to move data from one format to another. Additionally, one needs to write some code (usually python) to prepare the data just like the ML framework expects it.

I was pleasantly surprised when I saw during the MariaDB Server Fest that MindsDB, an automatic machine learning system, presented their integration with MariaDB.

Multilingual MariaDB video on Set Theory Features

Our very own Ian Gilfillan has created a brief and clear video called Get Set for Set Theory: UNION, INTERSECT and EXCEPT in SQL

Get Set for Set Theory: UNION, INTERSECT and EXCEPT in SQL

In a tad more than six minutes, you’ll see exactly how UNION, INTERSECT and EXCEPT work, starting in MariaDB 10.3, a few years back.

Ian explains what they are for, and the option to change default behaviour of DISTINCT with ALL (of which the ALL option was introduced in MariaDB 10.5).

That’s not new.

Selecting the right database

How do you select a database in practice? How do you pretend to select it? And, if you want to be serious, how do you select it logically?

Those are the key questions I dug into, during my keynote last week at Percona Live Online.

For those who feel they don’t want to listen to the entire 30 minute video of the presentation, I have compiled a number of entry points for you below:

  • 0:23 Silly hat meme, “Teknologmössa”
  • 2:19 Agenda
  • 2:43 Choosing a database in practice
  • 3:59 Pretending to choose a database
  • 5:00 Triggers for making a fresh choice
  • 5:51 Monetary impulses
  • 7:53 Database lifecycle impulses
  • 10:07 MariaDB 5.5 on Github
  • 11:24 Framework for database choice: 1.

MariaDB Academy: Authentication from MariaDB 10.4, and Account Locking and Password Expiry

This week sees the release of Authentication from MariaDB 10.4 on the MariaDB Foundation YouTube channel.

The latest in the series of video tutorials, it provides an overview of what’s changed with authentication from MariaDB 10.4, and looks in particular at unix_socket authentication. Although you’ll hopefully no longer need it, in case you have reverted to the old password authentication model, there’s the ubiqutous “how to restore access if you’ve lost your password” tutorial as well.

Continuing the MariaDB 10.4 theme, last week saw the release of Account Locking and Password Expiry by MariaDB Foundation software developer Robert Bindar. …

MariaDB Academy: NoSQL in MariaDB – JSON support.

Last week, MariaDB Foundation CEO Kaj Arnö asked how MariaDB can help you create great applications, and the first in what is sure to be many attempts to answer that was released today with Senior Software Developer and Team Lead Vicențiu Ciorbaru’s new video titled NoSQL in MariaDB – JSON support.

Demonstrating the primary JSON functions, JSON_VALID, JSON_COMPACT, JSON_DETAILED, JSON_INSERT, JSON_REPLACE, JSON_REMOVE and JSON_EXTRACT, Vicențiu covers the basics of MariaDB’s JSON functionality, culminating in a game data structure that sees footmen and peasant take on grunts in a human vs computer showdown.

View NoSQL in MariaDB – JSON support on MariaDB Foundation’s YouTube channel. …