Personal blog of Yzmir Ramirez

In April and May, Percona will hold and participate in two OpenStack events: OpenStack Live and the OpenStack Summit. Join our talks at these events in Santa Clara and Vancouver for new insights into the MySQL operations of the core of OpenStack as well as the latest information on MySQL guest instances.

Next week (April 13-14), Percona will host OpenStack Live at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Conveniently located for those in the Bay Area, this two day, user-focused event will cover many core aspects of OpenStack including Nova, Swift, Neutron, and Trove as well as related technologies like Ceph and Docker. (OpenStack Live passes include access to keynotes and the expo hall at the Percona Live MySQL Conference.)

OpenStack Live will be a packed two days with 6 hands-on tutorials, 18 sessions, and keynotes and panel discussions featuring speakers from Facebook, EMC, ObjectRocket, Percona, Yahoo, VMware, Deep Information Sciences, and special guest, Steve Wozniak. Yes, the real Steve Wozniak.

Of course I’m looking forward to my session, “An introduction to Database as a Service with an emphasis on OpenStack using Trove,” with Amrith Kumar, Founder and CTO of Tesora, on Tuesday from 11:30am – 12:20pm in Room 209. Some other topics you shouldn’t miss include:

Tutorial: Deploying, Configuring and Operating OpenStack Trove
Monday, April 13: 9:30am – 12:30pm in Room 203
Amrith Kumar (Tesora) and Sriram Kalyanasundaram (Tesora) will lead a 3 hour hands-on tutorial on Trove DBaaS. It’s rare to get such a focused tutorial on this key component of OpenStack and led by Tesora, major contributors to the Trove project. If you are even considering implementing Trove for your cloud, this is a must-attend class.

Tutorial: How to Get Your Groove on with OpenStack Swift Object Storage
Monday, April 13: 1:30pm – 4:30pm in Room 204
John Dickinson (OpenStack Swift), Manzoor Brar (SwiftStack), and Sergei Glushenko (Percona) will lead the audience on a journey into Swift, OpenStack’s object store project. John, the Swift “Project Team Lead” (PTL), and Manzoor will show you how to deploy a Swift cluster, use it with real applications, and, with the assistance of Sergei from Percona, how to properly backup MySQL databases to a Swift cluster.

Sessions which I’d recommend attending are:

Session: MySQL and OpenStack deep dive
Tuesday, April 14: 11:30am – 12:20pm in Room 204
Peter Boros (Percona)

Session: Deploying a OpenStack Cloud at Scale at Time Warner Cable
Tuesday, April 14: 1:20pm – 2:10pm in Room 203
Matthew Fischer (Time Warner Cable), Clayton O’Neill (Time Warner Cable)

Session: Designing a highly resilient Network Infrastructure for OpenStack Clouds
Tuesday, April 14: 3:50pm – 4:40pm in Room 203
Pere Monclus (PLUMgrid)

This is only a small sample of the tutorials and talks which you will hear at OpenStack Live. If you’re in the Bay Area next week and are interested in OpenStack or just want to learn more about some of the core components, register today to join us in Santa Clara from April 13-14. It will be well worth the investment.

As a reminder, getting the most out of all tutorials at OpenStack Live requires that you bring your own laptop and are ready to dig into the technologies. Review the session descriptions for any materials that should be downloaded or installed prior to the event.

Talks at OpenStack Summit Vancouver

Next month, Percona will join thousands in Vancouver for the next OpenStack Summit. In addition to helping those developing and running OpenStack to operate, optimize, and achieve high availability of the MySQL core, Percona MySQL experts will speak in two sessions.

Deep Dive into MySQL replication with OpenStack Trove, and Kilo
George Lorch (Percona) and Amrith Kumar (Tesora) will present an in depth exploration of MySQL replication with Trove and Kilo capabilities. This is a great way for anyone interested in OpenStack DBaaS to find out the latest information.

Core Services MySQL Database Backup and Recovery to Swift
Most OpenStack services rely heavily on MySQL, but how do you mitigate data loss in the event of a failed upgrade or unplanned outage? Kenny Gryp (Percona) and Chris Nelson (SwiftStack), experts in MySQL and storage, will discuss this challenge and provide advice and strategies for a fast, complete recovery from highly available storage sources.

The team from Percona will again be found in the exhibit hall at booth T37. We’re looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones that rely on Percona software, such as the Galera-based Percona XtraDB Cluster and Percona XtraBackup, in their OpenStack clouds.

The post More on OpenStack Live and our talks at OpenStack Summit Vancouver appeared first on MySQL Performance Blog.

Apple’s Steve “Woz” Wozniak will talk at Percona Live 2015

I am thrilled to announce that Apple co-founder and Silicon Valley icon and philanthropist Steve Wozniak will participate in a moderated Q&A on creativity and innovation April 14 during this year’s Percona Live MySQL Conference and Expo in Santa Clara, California.

In addition to “The Woz,” as Steve is nicknamed, we have a great lineup of esteemed industry luminaries, with a broad range of talks and tutorials along with fun and informative networking events during the four-day conference (April 13-16).

Harrison Fisk of Facebook’s Database Performance Team will deliver a keynote titled “Polyglot Persistence @Facebook” exploring why Facebook has so many different data solutions deployed at scale and how the company decides to deploy a new one. He’ll also talk about how Facebook is able to manage all these solutions and what types of optimizations are possible across all their data systems.

‘MySQL 101’ program announced
I wrote about the new “MySQL 101” program earlier this week. Largely driven by the broad demand for (and scarcity of) MySQL expertise across many industries, Percona Live is adding dual tracks for both developers and system administrators that will provide a 2-day course on MySQL fundamentals.

The two days of practical training will include everything needed to handle day-to-day MySQL DBA tasks. The motto of this new program is, “You send us developers and admins, and we will send you back MySQL DBAs.” You can check out the full schedule for MySQL 101 here.

Lightning Talks and Birds of a Feather Sessions
In related news, today we also announced the schedules for the popular “Lightning Talks” and “Birds of a Feather Sessions” (BoFs).

BoFs sessions enable attendees with interests in the same project or topic to enjoy some quality face time. The BoF sessions will take place Tuesday night, April 14, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. This year’s topics include:

• “Everything About MySQL Bugs” presented by Seta Smirnova, senior principal technical support engineer, and Valerii Kravchuk, principle support engineer at Percona
• “MySQL Galera Cluster, Percona XtraDB Cluster, and MariaDB Galera Cluster” presented by Jay Janseen, managing consultant at Percona
• “Data Security – Emerging Legal Trends” presented by S. Keith Moulsdale, partner at Whiteford, Taylor & Preston
• “WebScaleSQL Meeting/Hacking” presented by Steaphan Greene, software engineer at WebScaleSQL

Lightning Talks provide an opportunity for attendees to propose, explain, exhort, and rant on any MySQL-related topic for five minutes. Lightning Talks will take place Wednesday night, (April 15) during the MySQL Community Networking Reception, which begins immediately following the breakout sessions. They include:

• “Working From Home – Fun, Facts and Scares” presented by Raghavendra Prabhu, product lead, Percona XtraDB Cluster at Percona
• “The Future of MySQL Quality Assurance: Introducing pquery” presented by Roel Van de Paar, senior QA lead, and Ramesh Sivaraman, junior QA engineer at Percona

Community Reception
One of the most fun and compelling aspects of the Percona Live is the networking, providing the opportunity to make connections that can help enhance a career, facilitate a current project, or inspire new ideas. This year’s conference features the Community Networking Reception in the Expo Hall on Wednesday, April 15, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. The event will include the MySQL Community Awards and the Lightning Talks.

Conference Registration Promotions
Advanced pricing discounts are still available but will end on March 8. Register soon to take advantage of the best conference rates available. A Percona Live MySQL Conference & Expo Ticket provides you with access to all OpenStack Live sessions. In addition, in the spirit of the new MySQL 101 track, the first 101 people who sign-up for MySQL 101 using the “101” discount code will get their tickets for a $101 – a $299 savings! Attendees of MySQL 101 will have full access to Percona Live Keynotes and the Expo Hall.

See you next month!

The post Steve ‘Woz’ Wozniak to speak at Percona Live MySQL Conference & Expo 2015 appeared first on MySQL Performance Blog.

Percona has submitted seven talks for the next OpenStack Summit in Vancouver this May. And as with all OpenStack Summit events, the community decides the content. Voting ends February 23, and if you aren’t already an OpenStack Foundation member (required to vote), you can join now for free here.

Percona’s Vancouver OpenStack Summit proposals

Percona’s proposals include collaborations with top contributors across a variety of OpenStack services including Trove and Swift. You can vote for our talks by clicking the titles below that interest you.

MySQL and OpenStack Deep Dive
Speakers: Peter Boros, Jay Pipes (Mirantis)

Deep Dive into MySQL Replication with OpenStack Trove, and Kilo
Speakers: George Lorch, Amrith Kumar (Tesora)

MySQL on Ceph Storage: Exploring Design, Challenges and Benefits
Speakers: Yves Trudeau, Kyle Bader (Red Hat)

Core Services MySQL Database Backup & Recovery to Swift
Speakers: Kenny Gryp, Chris Nelson (SwiftStack)

Smart MySQL Log Management with Swift
Speakers: Matt Griffin, Chris Nelson (SwiftStack)

Discovering Better Database Architectures For Core Services In OpenStack
Speakers: Kenny Gryp, Matt Griffin

Upgrading your OpenStack Core Services On The Database Side: Nova, Neutron, Cinder…
Speakers: Kenny Gryp, Matt Griffin

Other interesting proposals

Here are a few proposals from other organizations that look particularly interesting. Please consider them as well.

Exploration into OpenStack Trove, customer use cases, and the future of Trove for the community
Speakers: Amrith Kumar (Tesora), Brad Topol (IBM), Mariam John (IBM)

The Entrepreneur’s Challenge: The Realities of Starting an OpenStack Company
Speakers: Simon Anderson (Dreamhost, Inktank), Ken Rugg (Tesora), Josh McKenty (Pivotal, Piston Cloud), Jesse Proudman (BlueBox), Joe Arnold (SwiftStack)

Making a Case for Your OpenStack Deployment: How Vendor’s Can Help
Speaker: Ryan Floyd (Storm Ventures)

Real World Experiences with Upgrading OpenStack at Time Warner Cable
Speakers: Clayton ONeill (Time Warner Cable), Matt Fischer (Time Warner Cable)

Percona & OpenStack

According to the most recent OpenStack User Survey in November 2014, Percona’s database software is a popular choice for OpenStack operators needing high availability.

OpenStack User Survey results from November 2014 shows Percona XtraDB Cluster as the top Galera-based choice for production clouds.

Percona XtraDB Cluster, the top Galera-based MySQL cluster solution for production OpenStack deployments, incorporates the latest version of MySQL 5.6, Percona Server 5.6, Percona XtraBackup, and Galera. This combination delivers top performance, high availability, and critical security coverage with the latest features and fixes. Additionally, Percona Server is a popular guest database option with unique features designed for cloud operators offering DBaaS.

In addition to sharing our open source software with the OpenStack community, Percona is sharing our expertise in services like Trove, projects like the HA Guide update, extensive benchmark testing activities, and upcoming events like OpenStack Live 2015. The inaugural OpenStack Live Conference, April 13-14 in Santa Clara, California, will be a user-focused event. The program will cover database-related on topics like Trove as well as other OpenStack services and feature multiple 3-hour hands-on tutorials.

Percona is a proud supporter of OpenStack and we hope to see you in both Santa Clara in April and Vancouver in May. And in the meantime, don’t forget to vote!

The post Percona submits 7 talks for Vancouver OpenStack Summit (voting ends Feb. 23) appeared first on MySQL Performance Blog.

Today we announced the full conference sessions schedule for April’s Percona Live MySQL Conference & Expo 2015 and this year’s event, once again at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara and Santa Clara Convention Center, looks to be the biggest yet with networking and learning opportunities for MySQL professionals and enthusiasts at all levels.

Conference sessions will run April 14-16 following each morning’s keynote addresses (the keynotes have yet to be announced). The 2015 conference features a variety of formal tracks and sessions related to high availability, DevOps, programming, performance optimization, replication and backup. They’ll also cover MySQL in the cloud, MySQL and NoSQL, MySQL case studies, security (a very hot topic), and “what’s new” in MySQL.

The sessions will be delivered by top MySQL practitioners at some of the world’s leading MySQL vendors and users, including Oracle, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, Yelp, Percona and MariaDB.

Sessions will include:

• “Better DevOps with MySQL and Docker,” Sunny Gleason, Founder, SunnyCloud
• “Big Transactions on Galera Cluster,” Seppo Jaakola, CEO, Codership
• “Database Defense in Depth,” Geoffrey Anderson, Database Operations Engineer, Box, Inc.
• “The Database is Down, Now What?” Jeremy Tinley, Senior MySQL Operations Engineer, Etsy.com
• “Encrypting MySQL data at Google,” Jeremy Cole, Sr. Systems Engineer, and Jonas Oreland, Software Developer, Google
• “High-Availability using MySQL Fabric,” Mats Kindahl, Senior Principal Software Developer, MySQL Group, Oracle
• “High Performance MySQL choices in Amazon Web Services: Beyond RDS,” Andrew Shieh, Director of Operations, SmugMug
• “How to Analyze and Tune MySQL Queries for Better Performance,” Øystein Grøvlen, Senior Principal Software Engineer, Oracle
• “InnoDB: A journey to the core III,” Davi Arnaut, Sr. Software Engineer, LinkedIn, and Jeremy Cole, Sr. Systems Engineer, Google, Inc.
• “Meet MariaDB 10.1,” Sergei Golubchik, Chief Architect, MariaDB
• “MySQL 5.7 Performance: Scalability & Benchmarks,” Dimitri Kravtchuk, MySQL Performance Architect, Oracle
• “MySQL at Twitter – 2015,” Calvin Sun, Sr. Engineering Manager, and Inaam Rana, Staff Software Engineer, Twitter
• “MySQL Automation at Facebook Scale,” Shlomo Priymak, MySQL Database Engineer, Facebook
• “MySQL Cluster Performance Tuning – The 7.4.x Talk,” Johan Andersson CTO and Alex Yu, Vice President of Products, Severalnines AB
• “MySQL for Facebook Messenger,” Domas Mituzas, Database Engineer, Facebook
• “MySQL Indexing, How Does It Really Work?” Tim Callaghan, Vice President of Engineering, Tokutek
• “MySQL in the Hosted Cloud,” Colin Charles, Chief Evangelist, MariaDB
• “MySQL Security Essentials,” Ronald Bradford, Founder & CEO, EffectiveMySQL
• “Scaling MySQL in Amazon Web Services,” Mark Filipi, MySQL Team Lead, Pythian
• “Online schema changes for maximizing uptime,” David Turner, DBA, Dropbox, and Ben Black, DBA, Tango
• “Upgrading to MySQL 5.6 @ scale,” Tom Krouper, Staff Database Administrator , Twitter

Of course Percona Live 2015 will also include several hours of hands-on, intensive tutorials – led by some of the top minds in MySQL. We had a post talking about the tutorials in more detail last month. Since then we added two more: “MySQL devops: initiation on how to automate MySQL deployment” and “Deploying MySQL HA with Ansible and Vagrant.” And of course Dimitri Vanoverbeke, Liz van Dijk and Kenny Gryp will once again this year host the ever-popular “Operational DBA in a Nutshell! Hands On Tutorial!”

Yahoo, VMWare, Box and Yelp are among the industry leaders sponsoring the event, and additional sponsorship opportunities are still available.

Worldwide interest in Percona Live continues to soar, and this year, for the first time, the conference will run in parallel with OpenStack Live 2015, a new Percona conference scheduled for April 13 and 14. That event will be a unique opportunity for OpenStack users and enthusiasts to learn from leading OpenStack experts in the field about top cloud strategies, improving overall cloud performance, and operational best practices for managing and optimizing OpenStack and its MySQL database core.

Best of all, your full Percona Live ticket gives you access to the OpenStack Live conference! So why not save some $$? Early Bird registration discounts are available through Feb. 1, 2015 at 11:30 p.m. PST.

I hope to see you in April!

The post Percona Live 2015 conference sessions announced! appeared first on MySQL Performance Blog.

On behalf of the OpenStack Live Conference Committee, I am excited to announce the sneak peek schedule for the inaugural OpenStack Live 2015 Conference! This new annual conference, running in parallel with the already established Percona Live MySQL Conference and Expo, will feature one day of tutorials followed by a full day of breakout sessions April 13-14, in Santa Clara, Calif.

Though the entire conference schedule won’t be finalized until early January, this initial list of talks is sure to spark interest! So without further ado, here is he OpenStack Live 2015 SNEAK PEEK SCHEDULE!

“Deploying an OpenStack Cloud at Scale at Time Warner Cable”
-Matthew Fischer, Principal Software Engineer for OpenStack DevOps at Time Warner Cable, and Clayton O’Neill, Principal Software Engineer for OpenStack Cloud at Time Warner Cable

“An Introduction to Database as a Service with an Emphasis on OpenStack Using Trove”
-Amrith Kumar, Founder and CTO of Tesora, Inc., and Tushar Katarki, Director of Product Management at Percona

“Lightweight OpenStack Benchmarking Service with Rally and Docker”
-Swapnil Kulkarni, Senior Software Engineer at Red Hat

“MySQL and OpenStack Deep Dive”
-Peter Boros, Principal Architect at Percona

This is just a small taste of what will be presented at OpenStack Live 2015 conference this spring. Take advantage of this unique opportunity to hear from leading experts in the field about top cloud strategies, improving overall cloud performance, and operational best practices for managing and optimizing OpenStack and its MySQL database core.

As a special bonus, OpenStack Live attendees attendees will also have access to the Percona Live MySQL Conference & Expo keynotes, receptions, exhibition hall, and Birds of a Feather sessions on April 13 and 14, allowing them to dive deeper into MySQL topics such as high availability, security, performance optimization, and much more.

Registration for OpenStack Live 2015 is now open… register now with Early Bird pricing! Hope to see you there!

The post OpenStack Live 2015: Sneak peak of the April conference appeared first on MySQL Performance Blog.

The OpenStack Live conference in Silicon Valley (April 13-14, 2015) will emphasize the essential elements of making OpenStack perform better with emphasis on the critical role of MySQL and Trove. If you use OpenStack and have a story to share or a skill to teach, we encourage you to submit a speaking proposal for a breakout or tutorial session. The OpenStack Live call for proposals is your chance to put your ideas, case studies, best practices and technical knowledge in front of an intelligent, engaged audience of OpenStack Users. If you are selected as a speaker, you will receive one complimentary full conference pass. November 16th is the last day to submit.

We are seeking submissions for both breakout and tutorial sessions on the following topics:

• Performance Optimization of OpenStack
• OpenStack Operations
• OpenStack Trove
• Replication and Backup for OpenStack
• High Availability for OpenStack
• OpenStack User Stories
• Monitoring and Tools for OpenStack

All submissions will be reviewed by our highly qualified Conference Committee:

• Mark Atwood from HP
• Rich Bowen from Red Hat
• Andrew Mitty from Comcast
• Jason Rouault from Time Warner
• Peter Boros from Percona

If you don’t plan to submit a speaking proposal, now is a great time to purchase your ticket at the low Super Saver rates. Visit the OpenStack Live 2015 conference website for full details.

The post OpenStack Live Call for Proposals closes November 16 appeared first on MySQL Performance Blog.

I will present a benchmarking talk next week (Nov. 4) at the OpenStack Paris Summit with Jay Pipes from Mirantis. In order to be able to talk about benchmarking, we had to be able to set up and tear down OpenStack environments really quickly. For the benchmarks, we are using a deployment on AWS (ironically) where the instances aren’t actually started and the tenant network is not reachable but all the backend operations still happen.

The first performance bottleneck we hit wasn’t at the MySQL level. We used Rally to benchmark the environment. We started 1,000 fake instances with it at the first glance.

The first bottleneck that we saw was neutron-server eating up a single CPU core. We took a deeper look, and saw that neutron-server is utilizing a single core completely. By default, neutron does everything in a single process. After configuring the api workers and the rpc workers, performance became significantly better.

api_workers = 64
rpc_workers = 32

Before adding the options:

u'runner': {u'concurrency': 24, u'times': 1000, u'type': u'constant'}}
+------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------------+---------------+---------+-------+
| action           | min (sec) | avg (sec) | max (sec) | 90 percentile | 95 percentile | success | count |
+------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------------+---------------+---------+-------+
| nova.boot_server | 4.125     | 9.336     | 15.547    | 11.795        | 12.362        | 100.0%  | 1000  |
| total            | 4.126     | 9.336     | 15.547    | 11.795        | 12.362        | 100.0%  | 1000  |
+------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------------+---------------+---------+-------+
Whole scenario time without context preparation:  391.359671831

After adding the options:

u'runner': {u'concurrency': 24, u'times': 1000, u'type': u'constant'}}
+------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------------+---------------+---------+-------+
| action           | min (sec) | avg (sec) | max (sec) | 90 percentile | 95 percentile | success | count |
+------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------------+---------------+---------+-------+
| nova.boot_server | 2.821     | 6.958     | 36.826    | 8.165         | 10.49         | 100.0%  | 1000  |
| total            | 2.821     | 6.958     | 36.826    | 8.165         | 10.49         | 100.0%  | 1000  |
+------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------------+---------------+---------+-------+
Whole scenario time without context preparation:  292.163493156

Stop by our talk at the OpenStack Paris Summit for more details!

In addition to our talk, Percona has two additional speakers at the OpenStack Paris Summit. George Lorch, Percona software engineer, will speak with Vipul Sabhaya of the HP Cloud Platform Services team on “Percona Server Features for OpenStack and Trove Ops.” Tushar Katarki, Percona director of product management, will present a vBrownBag Tech Talk entitled “MySQL High Availability Options for OpenStack.” Percona is exhibiting at the OpenStack Paris Summit conference, as well – stop by booth E20 and say hello!

At Percona, we’re pleased to see the adoption of our open source software by the OpenStack community and we are working actively to develop more solutions for OpenStack users. We also provide Consulting assistance to organizations that are adopting OpenStack internally or are creating commercial services on top of OpenStack.

We are also pleased to introduce the first annual OpenStack Live, a conference focused on OpenStack and Trove, which is April 13 & 14, 2015 in Santa Clara, California. The call for speaking proposals is now open for submissions which will be reviewed by our OpenStack Live Conference Committee (including me!).

The post MySQL and Openstack deep dive talk at OpenStack Paris Summit (and more!) appeared first on MySQL Performance Blog.

Founded in 1998, Rackspace has evolved over the years to address the way customers are using data – and more specifically, databases. The San Antonio-based company is fueling the adoption of cloud computing among organizations large and small.

Today Rackspace is doubling down on open source database technologies. Why? Because that’s where the industry is heading, according to Sean Anderson, Manager of Data Services at Rackspace. The company, he said, created a separate business unit of 100+ employees focused solely on database workloads.

The key technologies under the hood include both relational databases (e.g., MySQL, Percona Server, and MariaDB) and NoSQL databases (e.g., MongoDB, Redis, and Apache Hadoop).

Last July Rackspace added support for Percona Server and MariaDB to their Cloud Databases DBaaS (Database-as-a-Service) product, primarily at the request of application developers who had been requesting more open source database support options.

Matt Griffin, Percona director of product management, and I recently sat down with Sean and his colleague Neha Verma, product manager of Cloud Databases. Our discussion focused on the shift to DBaaS as well as what to expect in the future from Rackspace in terms of Cloud Databases, OpenStack Trove and more.

* * *

Matt: Why did you expand the Cloud Databases product this past summer?
Sean:  We launched cloud databases about a year and a half ago. Since then we’ve rolled feature after feature (backups, monitoring, configuration management, etc…) focused on simplifying our customers life, this backed by Fanatical support has made the product easier to use and more production ready than ever. We understand that features aren’t enough so in addition to all the features we have also made significant improvements to the hardware and network infrastructure. All this means that we’ve been very busy not just expanding the offering but also making the offering simpler to use, more complete and more scalable.

Our vision is to offer a robust platform that with the most popular Big Data, SQL, and NoSQL databases on dedicated, bare metal, and public cloud infrastructure.

Matt: What type of customer is your Cloud Databases offering aimed at?
Sean: Currently we have a variety of customers running multiple Cloud Database instances ranging from customers running a two-month marketing campaign to customers running web applications, ecommerce applications with highly transactional database workloads. Our customers prefer the simplicity and reliability of the service which allows them to focus on their business and not worry about the heavy lifting associated with scaling and managing databases.

Matt: How is your Cloud Databases offering backed-up?
Neha: We use Percona XtraBackup  to perform a hot copy of all databases on a instance and then stream the backups to Cloud Files for storage. A customer can anytime restore the backup to a new instance. Percona XtraBackup is the only option we offer customers right now.

Tom: In terms of security, how do you address customer concerns? Are cloud-based open source databases more secure?
Sean: Data security concerns are at an all-time high and we have a number of up and coming features that continue to address those concerns.   Today we offer a number of unique features specifically Cloud Databases can only be accessed on the private network so the database can only be accessed by systems on your private network. Additionally, we support SSL for communication between user application and database instance so that any data transfer is encrypted in transit.  These features along with the built in user controls and authentication mechanisms help significantly address customers security concerns.  Ultimately Cloud-based open source databases or no more or less secure than any other database, security is about more than features it is about the process and people that build and manage your database and we have those more than covered.

Matt: Is this for production applications or pre-production?
Sean: It’s very much production capable. While there’s a perception that this type of offering would only fit for use cases around test or dev, the truth is we are running hundreds of very large, fully managed instances of MySQL on the cloud. We don’t make any delineation between production or pre-production. However, we’re definitely seeing more and more production workloads come onto the service as people are getting educated on the development work that we’ve done around adding these new features. Replication and monitoring are the two most popular right now.

Matt: How are people accessing and using it?
Sean: A majority of our users either access the database via the Control Panel, API or a command-line utility.

Matt: Since the launch, how has the reaction been?
Sean: The reaction from the press standpoint has been very positive. When we talk with industry analysts they see our commitment to open source and where we are going with this.

Tom: How committed is Rackspace to OpenStack?
Sean: We all live in OpenStack. We have tons of Rackers heading to the upcoming OpenStack Paris Summit in November. We’re looking forward to many years of contributing to the OpenStack community.

Tom: Last April, Rackspace hosted several sessions on OpenStack and Trove at the Percona Live MySQL Conference and Expo 2014 in Santa Clara, Calif. What are you looking forward to most at Percona Live 2015?
Sean: For us, Percona Live is about listening to the MySQL community. It’s our best opportunity each year to actually setup shop and get to learn what’s top of mind for them. We then can take that information and develop more towards that direction.

Tom: And as you know we’re also launching “OpenStack Live” to run parallel to the Percona Live MySQL conference. OpenStack Live 2015 runs April 13-14 and will emphasize the essential elements of making OpenStack work better with emphasis on the critical role of MySQL and the value of Trove. I look forward to hearing the latest news from Rackspace at both events.

Thanks Sean and Neha for speaking with us and I look forward to seeing you this coming April in Santa Clara at Percona Live and OpenStack Live!

On a related note, I’ll also be attending Percona Live London (Nov. 3-4) where we’ll have sessions on OpenStack Trove and everything MySQL. If you plan on attending, please join me at the 2014 MySQL Community Dinner (pay-your-own-way) on Nov. 3. (Register here to reserve your spot at the Community Dinner because space will be limited. You do not need to attend Percona Live London to join the dinner).

The post Rackspace doubling-down on open-source databases, Percona Server appeared first on MySQL Performance Blog.

OpenStack Live 2015: Call for speakers open through Nov. 9

I am proud to announce OpenStack Live, a new annual conference that will run in parallel with the Percona Live MySQL Conference & Expo at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Silicon Valley. The inaugural event, OpenStack Live 2015, is April 13-14, 2015. We are lining up a strong Conference Committee and are now accepting tutorial and breakout session speaking proposals through November 9.

OpenStack Live will emphasize the essential elements of making OpenStack work better with emphasis on the critical role of MySQL and the value of Trove. You’ll hear about the hottest current topics, learn about operating a high-performing OpenStack deployment, and listen to top industry leaders describe the future of the OpenStack ecosystem. We are seeking speaking proposals on the following topics:

• Performance Optimization of OpenStack
• OpenStack Operations
• OpenStack Trove
• Replication and Backup for OpenStack
• High Availability for OpenStack
• OpenStack User Stories
• Monitoring and Tools for OpenStack

The conference features a full day of keynotes, breakout sessions, and Birds of a Feather sessions on April 14 preceded by an optional day of tutorials on April 13. A Monday reception will be held on the exhibit floor and joint lunches with both conferences offer you the opportunity to network with both the OpenStack and MySQL communities from both conferences. The OpenStack Live conference is a great event for users of any level.

As a bonus, OpenStack Live attendees may attend any Percona Live MySQL Conference session during the days of the OpenStack event. Conference only passes are available for April 14 and conference and tutorial passes are available for both April 13 and 14.

If you are using OpenStack and have a story to share – or a skill to teach – then now is the time to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and write your speaking proposal for either breakout or tutorial sessions (or both). Submissions will be reviewed by the OpenStack Live Conference Committee, which includes:

• Mark Atwood: Director – Open Source Evangelism for HP Cloud Services
• Rich Bowen: OpenStack Community Liaison at Red Hat
• Jason Rouault: Senior Director OpenStack Cloud at Time Warner Cable
• Peter Boros: Principal Architect at Percona

Presenting at OpenStack Live 2015 is your chance to put your ideas, case studies, best practices and technical knowledge in front of an intelligent, engaged audience of OpenStack users. If selected as a speaker by our Conference Committee, you will receive a complimentary full conference pass.

Public speaking not your thing or just want to learn about the latest and greatest OpenStack technologies, deployments and projects? Then register now and save big with our early bird discount. OpenStack Live 2015 is an ideal opportunity for organizations to connect with the community of OpenStack enthusiasts from Silicon Valley and around the world. The Percona Live MySQL Conference this past April had over 1,100 registered attendees from 40 countries and the OpenStack Open Source Appreciation Day on the Monday before the conference was fully booked so don’t delay, register today to save your seat!

We are currently accepting sponsors. You can learn more about sponsorship opportunities here.

I hope to see you at OpenStack Live 2015 next April! And speakers, remember the deadline to submit your proposals is November 9. In the meantime you can learn more by visiting the official OpenStack Live 2015 website.

The post OpenStack Live 2015: Call for speakers open through November 9 appeared first on MySQL Performance Blog.