Personal blog of Yzmir Ramirez

I’m going to be speaking on Highload++ conference October 3,4 in Moscow, Russia. This is a great conference which gathers amazing quality of speakers from Russia and around the world and I usually learn a lot and enjoy talking to a lot of great people on this event.

My talk is going to be about new developments in MySQL Server 5.5, 5.6, Percona Server, MariaDB and Drizzle as it relates to high volume/large scale projects. There is a lot of really cool things happening in MySQL space recently and I would love to share those with you.

I’m also doing a training session 5th of October, which will be in depth training session based on Percona’s Training for MySQL Developers. In fact this is a great learning experience both for MySQL Developers and DBAs and this is unique opportunity to attend this course
given in Russian. Bring your laptop if you have one for more Hands On experience.

If you would like to do business with Percona I will be available for business development and consulting meetings on Thursday and Friday next week.

Finally note We’re Hiring worldwide for most of positions, so if you’re interested joining Percona Team, come and talk to me. We have both technical and non technical positions, in particular we’re looking for Sales and Business Development person in Russia.

Why so late announcement. Ah if you must know I did not know if I will be able to make it until very last minute. My passport was stalled in the British Consulate getting visa to UK for Percona Live London in late October. It is great we could get the documents back in time for my travel.

It’s Friday again (already?) and as usual, we have a free ticket for Percona Live London. This time Tokutek is doing the honors of running the contest and selecting the winner. Instructions for entering the contest are on their blog, at the top of my recent guest post about covering indexes.

The Zend Framework team announces the immediate availability of Zend Framework’s
ALL ONES 1.11.11 release, the eleventh maintenance release in the 1.11 series.

1.11.11 includes around 30 bug fixes and may be downloaded from the Zend Framework site .

I wrote about Intel 320 SSD write performance before, but I was not satisfied with these results.

Somewhat each time on Intel 320 SSD I was getting different write performance, so it made me looking into this with details.

So let’s run experiment as in previous post, this is sysbench fileio random write on different file size, from 10GiB to 140GiB with 10GiB step. I use ext4 filesystem, and I perform filesystem format before increasing filesize.

The results are pretty much as in previous post, the throughput drops as we increase filesize:

However, there is when interesting stuff begin. Now when we run the same iterations again, the result will look like:

As you see, second time the throughput is much worse, even on medium size files. Just after 50GiB size, throughput gets below 40MiB/sec And this is with the fact, that I perform filesystem format before each run.

This leads me to conclusion that write performance on Intel 320 SSD is decreasing in time, and actually it is quite unpredictable in each given point of time. Filesystem format does not help, and only secure erase procedure allows to return to initial state. There are commands for this procedure for reference.

hdparm --user-master u --security-set-pass Eins /dev/sd$i
hdparm --user-master u --security-erase Eins /dev/sd$i


Discussing this problem with engineers working with Intel 320 SSD drives I was advised to use artificial space provisioning, about 20%. Basically we create partition which takes only 80% of space.

So let’s try this. The experiment the same as previously, with difference that I use 120G partition, and max filesize is 110GiB.

You can see that throughput in first iteration is basically the same as with full drive, but second iteration performs much better. Throughput never drops below 40MiB/sec, and stays on about 50MiB/sec level.

So, I think, this advise to use space provisioning is worth to consider if you want to have some kind of protection and maintain throughput on some level.

Raw results and used scripts as always you can find on our Benchmarks Launchpad

Symfony2 published this week its 2.0.3 maintenance version, which fixed some minor bugs. Meanwhile, 2.1 branch added cool new tweaks and features, such as a new validator for user password, the ability to set different options for repeating fields and PHP 5.4 traits support for ClassLoader. Lastly, symfony developers gathered this week for another symfony meeting and discussed lots of interesting topics.

Development mailing list

• Packaging Symfony with an IDE
• Sf2 HTTP CACHE – ESI problem

Symfony2 development highlights

Changelog:

• 903ab81:
  [Translation] support Ini file format
• 83199ae:
  [FrameworkBundle] fixed unintuitive merging behavior for assets_base_urls
• a0329c3:
  added lifetime/cleanup support for MongoDbProfilerStorage
• bca551e, cf736cc:
  [DomCrawler] ChoiceFormField should take the content when value is unavailable
• 022a9a7:
  [Security] made saving target_path extendible
• 7d3c2df:
  [SecurityBundle] added a validator for the user password (this validator is useful when you want to validate that an input value is equal to the user current password)
• 64d44fb:
  [Translator] fixed recursion when using a fallback that is the same as the locale
• 3e90ba4, 56b6d53:
  [WebProfileBundle] added missing position attribute in XSD
• e98584e:
  [WebProfilerBundle] tweaked some templates
• c9ddd6f:
  [WebProfilerBundle] moved the token not found error to the new info page
• e5a23db:
  [ClassLoader] added support for PHP 5.4 traits
• 98abc8e:
  [DependencyInjection] changed the default YAML indentation to 4 spaces instead of 2
• b6c8f63:
  [TwigBridge] fixed message keys extraction when no domain is defined in the template
• e0ace8e, b8e5a15:
  [DependencyInjection] fixed array support for the ini loader
• ae3aded, d830253, e2945c9:
  added PCRE_DOTALL modifier to RouteCompiler to allow urlencoded linefeed in route parameters
• 8819db3, 0679220, f8a6a4b, 78ebe11:
  [Form] allow setting different options to repeating fields

Repository summary: 3,075 watchers (#1 in PHP, #25 overall) and 785 forks (#1 in PHP, #13 overall).

New plugins

• sfPEARcaptcha: (no description)

Updated plugins

• ddOnlineStore:
  • changed configure to setup method
• pmPropelGenerator:
  • top batch actions are now fixed
• sfAssetsLibrary:
  • missing function number for CKEditor
• sfTaskLogger:
  • fixed event dispatcher object in order to avoid core log messages
  • added lib folder to make a file specific ignore
  • ignored default generated model files
  • added PlugintlTaskTableExtended.class.php in order to avoid hack or sample file
  • added the 1.4 doctrine admin generator module
  • fixed and updated the documentation
• cpTcpdf:
  • fixed TCPDF
• sfTCPDF:
  • updated TCPDF constants for version 5_9_120
  • updated README and examples
  • tested plugin with TCPDF 5_9_120 (2011-09-22)
  • fixed CS and typos
  • removed 1.1 symfony version from suported versions
• cpDatePicker:
  • fixed date picker
• apostrophePeople:
  • added more flexible filterNameParams to people Plugin
• apostropheS3Storage:
  • behold the best Amazon S3 stream wrapper ever, with full support for subdirectory listings (not just at the bucket level)
  • fixed many bugs in rename(), wrote unit tests for many rename() scenarios
• apostrophe:
  • added an optional callback to the linkToRemote function
  • re-wrote the content style exceptions for the Rich Text slot
  • aActAsSubmit will trigger a custom event just before .submit() is called: aActAsSubmitCallback
  • togglePageOverlay lets the overlay fadein/out rather that switch on.off

They talked about us

• My PHP framework winner predictions
• Kiedy i dlaczego tworzy? oprogramowanie pod klucz i dlaczego framework Symfony2 pasuje tu jak ula??
• Twig extensions – name them correctly!
• Sensio : « Nous voulons créer un réseau européen d’expertise Symfony »
• ???????????
• ?????????????? ???????????? ? Symfony2 ? ??????? Behat ? Mink
• Installer Symfony(2) sur linux via le terminal
• Using static pages in Symfony
• Symfony2 Graphviz?DI??????????????
• Symfony 2: Getting Current Route in Twig
• Integrating Magento into Symfony2
• opFavoritePlugin 1.0.1 ?????????
• Großes kündigt sich an: Drupal 8 goes Symfony2
• ???????????? PHP ???????????
• Symfony 2.0: Server Setup
• Instalar el plugin de twig para netbeans
• How to create Links between Applications
• Symfony 1.4 – Trimite email din linie de comanda
• Zend Framework Vs Symfony
• Creating embedded forms in Symfony 2.0
• ????????? ?????????? ???????????? ???? Symfony 1.4 ? ????? python django-multilingual
• Assetic & LESS

We have just discovered a bug in PHP, which breaks some configuration if you
are using the parameters.ini file for your configuration.

The parse_ini_file() PHP function is buggy when used with the
INI_SCANNER_RAW mode (it is unable to parse a configuration like
foo="foo;foo", which occurs if you want tostore a DSN for instance:
profiler_dsn="mysql:host=localhost;dbname=foobar").

The usage of the INI_SCANNER_RAW mode has been introduced in 2.0.2 to fix
Boolean support in ini files. So, this patch have been reverted for now and a
new version of Symfony has been released (2.0.3).

Symfony 2.0.2 has just been released. It comes with minor bug fixes,
contributed by 32 developers. The
CHANGELOG
has all the details about the changes and you can even have a look at the full
diff.

If you are starting a new project, you can get the Symfony Standard Edition
distribution on the download page.

If you already have a project based on the Symfony Standard Edition 2.0.0 or
2.0.1, you can easily upgrade to 2.0.2 by getting the new
deps and
deps.lock
files.

Then, run the vendors script:

$ ./bin/vendors install

And don’t forget to clear your cache:

$ php ./app/console cache:clear

Only one month to go: for the third time, the Symfony
Day will take place in Cologne. 2011 is without a
doubt an important year for our favorite framework: Symfony Live Events took
place in San Francisco and Paris. A stable release of Symfony2 has been
available since summer, and next month, on October 21st 2011, another Symfony
Day will bring the community together at Cologne Mediapark.

The Symfony Day is a one-of-a-kind event in Germany. Get the latest news from
the development team, meet the community, and get inspired by
talks from different
corners of the Symfony ecosystem.

Don’t forget the workshop
day on October 20th: Participants will have the opportunity to work with
Symfony, learn from the Symfony experts, and share their experiences with
others. Only a few tickets are left for the workshops – get them while you
can!

Last but not least: Join us for a drink and some geek talk on Thursday evening
at a downtown bar in Cologne!

Make sure to follow @sfdaycgn on Twitter for latest news and updates!

Percona is glad to announce the release of Percona XtraBackup 1.6.3 on 22 September, 2011 (Downloads are available here and from the Percona Software Repositories).

This release is purely composed of bug fixes and is the current stable release of Percona Xtrabackup.

If the innodb_file_per_table server option is being used and DDL operations, TRUNCATE TABLE, DROP/CREATE the_same_table or ALTER statements on InnoDB tables are executed while taking a backup, an upgrade to XtraBackup 1.6.3 is strongly recommended. Under this scenario, if the server version is prior to 5.5.11 in 5.5 series or prior to 5.1.49 in 5.1 series, a server upgrade is also recommended.

All of Percona’s software is open-source and free, all the details of the release and its development process can be found in the 1.6.3 milestone at Launchpad.

Bugs Fixed

• Streaming backups did not work for compressed InnoDB tables due to missing support for compressed pages in tar4ibd. Bug Fixed: #665210 (Alexey Kopytov).

• XtraBackup failed when innodb_flush_method in the server configuration file was set to ALL_O_DIRECT. Bug Fixed: #759225 (Alexey Kopytov).

• Due to a regression introduced in XtraBackup 1.6.2, innobackupex --copy-back did not work if the xtrabackup binary was not specified explicitly with the --ibbackupoption. Bug Fixed: #817132 (Alexey Kopytov).

• The --slave-info option now works correctly with --safe-slave-backup when either --no-lock or --incremental is also specified. Bug Fixed: #834657 (Alexey Kopytov).

• tar4ibd could fail with an error when processing doublewrite pages. Bug Fixed: #810269 (Alexey Kopytov).

• Unsupported command line options could cause a tar4ibd crash. Such options have been removed. Bug Fixed: #677279 (Alexey Kopytov).

• Executing DDL operations, TRUNCATE TABLE, DROP/CREATE the_same_table or ALTER statements on InnoDB tables while taking a backup could lead to a xtrabackup failure due to a tablespace ID mismatch when using per-table tablespaces. Note that this fix may not work correctly with MySQL 5.5 or Percona Server 5.5 prior to version 5.5.11. 5.1 releases from 5.1.49 or higher have been confirmed not to be affected. If the innodb_file_per_table option is being used, an upgrade to XtraBackup 1.6.3 isstrongly recommended. Under this scenario, if the server version is prior to 5.5.11 in 5.5 series or prior to 5.1.49 in 5.1 series, a server upgrade is alsorecommended. Bug Fixed: #722638 (Alexey Kopytov).

Other Changes

• Improvements and fixes on the XtraBackup Test Suite: #855035, #787966 (Alexey Kopytov)

• Improvements and fixes on distribution: #775463, #745168, #849872, #785556 (Ignacio Nin)

• Improvements and fixes on the XtraBackup Documentation: #837754, #745185, #836907 (Rodrigo Gadea)

More Information

For more information, please see the following links:

• Downloads: Binary distributions, Percona Software Repositories

• Consulting, support, training, and custom development

• Release notes

• Documentation

• Developer Discussion group

• General Discussion group