MariaDB Enterprise 2 Bridges The Gap Between SQL And NoSQL

SkySQL, the Helsinki-based company founded by former MySQL executives after Oracle bought Sun in 2010, has combined relational and non-relational database features in the latest release of MariaDB Enterprise.

The company says that, despite NoSQL being rapidly adopted by businesses which rely on Web data, the technology is not trusted by conservative industries such as banking and manufacturing. It hopes to change this trend with the launch of MariaDB Enterprise 2 and Cluster 2, products which ensure data consistency at all times while being able to handle very large, unstructured NoSQL datasets.

“Innovation like this is why Red Hat has included MariaDB in our Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 beta, and why we look forward to our continued collaboration,” commented Brian Stevens, CTO at RedHat.

The launch coincides with the general release of the MariaDB 10 open source database server.

Two for the price of one

MySQL is the world’s second most widely used relational database management system. It’s effectively owned by Oracle since its 2010 acquisition of Sun Microsystems, which had previously bought the developer, MySQL AB for $1 billion in 2008.

MariaDB is a community-developed fork of MySQL, distributed free under the GNU General Public License. It is the brainchild of the original MySQL team and Michael “Monty” Widenius, co-founder of the company.

In many business environments, relational databases are being slowly replaced by non-relational, or NoSQL products which are simpler to use, are not built on tables, and tend not to use structured query language to manipulate data, allowing for more flexibility and scalability. SkySQL says the most challenging environments are the ones that combine the two technologies.

MariaDB Enterprise 2 embraces the change. Developed with input from IBM, Facebook, Google and Chinese e-commerce giant TaoBao, it takes the popular SQL product and adds NoSQL interoperability (also present in MariaDB 10), while still protecting all data in the case of an outage.

Meanwhile MariaDB Enterprise Cluster 2 simplifies the deployment of highly available database clusters through a new user console and management API.

“MariaDB Enterprise 2 and MariaDB Enterprise Cluster 2 allow businesses adopting MariaDB technologies to move beyond the garage to deploy their mission-critical apps and IT infrastructure on mature, proven database technologies while benefiting from NoSQL-like performance,” said Patrik Sallner, CEO of the company. “SkySQL’s world-class team of support engineers and MariaDB core team developers give our customers the expert help they need to solve the challenges of operating at web-scale.”

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