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The open source MySQL database system serves many of the world’s leading enterprises, such as Yahoo and Ticketmaster. It also powers a legion of high volume open source websites like Wikipedia. Many enterprise organizations, however, have traditionally avoided MySQL in favor of feature-rich commercial database systems, such as Oracle and DB2. Starting with MySQL 5.0 [1], the MySQL developers have begun introducing a range of enterprise features that will ultimately make MySQL more competitive with commercial database systems. This article examines some of the enterprise features that have been making their way into MySQL. Many of these features were introduced in version 5.0, and some may be enhanced in version 5.1, which is in beta at this time of writing but may be official by the time you read this article. I used version 5.1.9-beta when testing the listings in this article. Three of the most appealing new features in MySQL 5.x are stored procedures, triggers, and views. These features are hardly new for the industry. Oracle, for example, first introduced PL/ SQL [2], its implementation of a procedural language for SQL, in 1991. Sybase, PostgreSQL, and DB2 are among the other database management systems with a procedural language for SQL. However, triggers, views, and stored procedures are nevertheless a welcome addition to MySQL.

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