How Intel helps MariaDB become even faster

There are many forums in the past couple of years where I have talked about how non-code contributions are just as important to MariaDB Server and us at the MariaDB Foundation as the code contributions I typically help with. I’ve also highlighted in the past how Intel have provided some fantastic non-code contributions. They assist us by detecting performance issues on their new and future platforms, as well guidance in finding the root cause of these issues.

The outcome: Over a million NOPM in HammerDB

Today I want to discuss some of the performance improvements that Intel has helped with, which have led to MariaDB Server achieving 1 million NOPM (new orders per minute) in the HammerDB TPROC-C test.

MariaDB Contribution Statistics, April 2024

With the first quarter of 2024 out of the way, we can take a look at the contribution statistics for the last three months. For the Foundation, this has been a very busy quarter, we have had a few big events to prepare for and attend. As well as two very large projects we are working on (Catalogs and vector indexing). This has meant that it has been difficult for us to keep up with all the wonderful contributions.

That being said, over the coming quarter we will try to rectify this and have some plans to make things better in future.

MariaDB Contribution Statistics, October 2023

We are in October, which means it has been 4 months since the last metrics report. It is, therefore, time for another quarterly metrics report (plus a bit more). The extra month was to allow for an announcement which is a prerequisite for this post, and it also means we are more or less aligned to real quarters. The major changes to this will come in the second half of this post, we have lots of additional data for pull requests. With that, let’s get started.

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Google Summer of Code 2023

The Google Summer of Code is a fantastic program that pairs new contributors up with mentors and pays them to work on open source projects.

MariaDB has been part of Google Summer of Code for 10 years and we are happy to announce that we are officially part of the program this year, too!

Traditionally, GSoC has only been open to university students, but now it is available to anyone! I’m a big fan of this, because talented people who do not have the opportunity to go to university can get involved. It also benefits those who are working towards a change into a career in software development.

MariaDB Non-Code Contributions by Intel

I’ve mentioned in past blog posts that not every contribution is a code contribution. There are many possible contributions that are valuable, including testing, bug reports, helping the community, etc.

Non-code contributions are quite invisible

Unfortunately, non-code contributions are sometimes invisible to the wider community, so today I wanted to shine a light on some such contributions. In this case, contributions made by one of our sponsors, Intel.

Intel is open source friendly

Intel have been an open source friendly company for a long time. But have recently pushed harder than ever towards open source, even giving their first ever new Innovation Award to Linus Torvalds.

Contribution Statistics September 2022

Last month we provided contributor statistics for the last few years. We have had some fantastic feedback from this so today we are presenting you with another drop of contributor statistics for the last month. Normally we would be doing these quarterly but there are so many extra things to report that we decided to do a bonus one now.

Some key things have happened in the last month which affect the data, the first is that MariaDB 10.11 has had a preview release. Which means there has been a flurry of activity around this.

Contribution Wish List

Would you like to contribute to the MariaDB Server code base, its feature set, its quality? Here’s what you can do to help – in other words, here’s our Contribution Wish List

Scratching your own itch

The assumption around code contributions is usually that the code contributor extends the product in a direction that corresponds to the contributor’s own needs, which in turn are close to the needs of other users. “Scratching your own itch” is the phrase commonly used.

Some itches are more for the common good

That said, we have also been approached by potential providers of contributions that would take a more general approach.