Personal blog of Yzmir Ramirez

There are two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-1 errors. This classic joke, often attributed to Phil Karlton, highlights a very real and persistent challenge for software developers. We’re constantly striving to build faster, more responsive systems, and caching is a fundamental strategy for achieving that. But while caching offers […]

We’ve mentioned this a few times here on the blog already, but in case you missed it, MySQL 8.0’s end-of-life date is April 2026. This probably sounds forever away, but it’s going to sneak up before you know it. Maybe you’ve been putting off thinking about it, or maybe you’re already weighing your options but […]

AI and machine learning are seemingly everywhere, and that’s forcing every database company to think about vector search. Companies want to build things like smart search that actually understands what you mean, recommendation systems that know what you’ll like, and tools that can spot when something’s off. To make all of this work at the […]

When you run a simple write, …it may look simple, but under the hood, MySQL’s InnoDB engine kicks off a pretty complex sequence to ensure your data stays safe, consistent, and crash-recoverable. In the top-left corner of the diagram, we see exactly where this begins — the moment the query is executed: [crayon-68cb7b0282a22221090106/] The log […]

Right now, you’re probably hoping someone else will deal with this MySQL 8.0 end-of-life situation. Maybe your team can squeeze another few months out of it. Maybe Oracle will extend support. Maybe it won’t be as bad as everyone says. We get it.  You’ve got enough things going on without adding “major database upgrade” to […]

Percona has a great set of tools known as the Percona Toolkit, one of which is pt-upgrade. The idea behind this tool is to replay a captured sequence of queries that were executed on a different database server. This is very useful to validate if a new version of the database server works as expected […]

How do you know if your backup is truly reliable? The last thing you want is to discover your data is corrupted during a critical restore or during a migration. While MyDumper is a powerful tool for logical backups, its -M option takes backup integrity to the next level by creating checksums. This often-overlooked feature […]

If you manage a MySQL database, you’ve probably heard the news: MySQL 8.0 is heading for its End of Life (EOL), and taking center stage is MySQL 8.4, the first-ever Long-Term Support (LTS) release. This is great news for all of us who value stability, as it means a more predictable, enterprise-ready platform for the […]

It may be surprising when a new InnoDB Cluster is set up, and despite not being in production yet and completely idle, it manifests a significant amount of writes visible in growing binary logs. This effect became much more spectacular after MySQL version 8.4. In this write-up, I will explain why it happens and how to address […]

Your MySQL database has been running smoothly for years. Your team knows it inside and out. Everything just… works. Why rock the boat with an upgrade? Here’s why: MySQL 8.0 reaches its end-of-life date in April 2026. After this date, there’s no safety net; staying on end-of-life software means you’re taking on all the responsibility […]