Oracle previews MySQL 5.6 features

Oracle has announced an early access version of MySQL 5.6 at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention. This early access release focuses on scalability, performance and flexibility. The InnoDB storage engine has been upgraded to support full text search, with the ability to create full text indices and search for text content stored in InnoDB tables.

Faster startup is promised by the addition of "Buffer Pool Pre-loading Options"; this allows automated or manual options to preload the InnoDB buffers and "significantly shorten the warm-up times after server re-start". Redo Log files have been increased from 4 GB to 2 TB; this will enable better performance in write-intensive applications which won't have to pause so often to manage the log files.

A new BinLog API opens the way for replication from MySQL to other systems, by allowing the reading and decoding of MySQL's binary logs (used for server to server replication). Oracle suggests that applications can make use of the API, for example, to seed third-party indexers or databases. The BinLog mechanism itself has been improved with Group Commit; now updates to the binary log can be applied in parallel for improved performance.

The preview of MySQL 5.6 is available at labs.mysql.com, labelled "Not fit for production". The various new features are incorporated separately in different builds. The features are currently in development and Oracle is seeking feedback on them. Once this process is complete, it will integrate the features into a development milestone, and later still, a general availability release.

(djwm)