MariaDB 10.4 and the Competition – Percona Live ONLINE Talk Preview

May 7, 2020 7 May 2020 by Kaj Arno

Percona Live Online Agenda Slot: Tue 19 May • New York 12:30 p.m. • London 5:30 p.m. • New Delhi 10:00 p.m.

Abstract

There are many good databases out there. Picking the right database for your project is never easy. There are technical criteria, business criteria, perhaps even ethical criteria. In this keynote, MariaDB Foundation CEO Kaj Arno will present his - obviously completely impartial - view of the process. Should you pick a database in the cloud or on premise? Should you pick an Open Source database or a closed-source one? And if you pick relational open source databases, how should you choose between MariaDB, MySQL and PostgresSQL? Expect the recommendation to not always be “go with MariaDB 10.4”. However, do expect to get a view of how the MariaDB Foundation sees its role, in relation to MariaDB Server, to MariaDB Corporation, to its other members (Microsoft, IBM, Service Now, Alibaba, Tencent, Booking.com, et al.), and above all, to the community of database developers and users.

Why is your talk exciting?

Can you expect a partial person to come with a neutral comparison between competitors? No. But it can still be logical and insightful. Can you expect such a comparison to be exciting? Yes. And it can be entertaining, too. Why? Because I am starting from the basic reasoning of “Cui bono”: Who benefits? From what? What is the likely reasoning by the actors in the database industry? And what is their actual behavior?

Who would benefit the most from your talk?

Developers, DBAs, sysadmins. Anyone who needs to decide how to make data persistent in their apps. Where should data be stored? How should one even think about the choice process? Technology issues, business issues, the lot.

What other presentations are you most looking forward to?

On the full agenda, all the keynoters are great! The last few PeterZ presentations I’ve seen have been wonderful combinations of deep technical expertise and logical business reasoning. Matt Asay is always insightful. And there is a lot to be learned from Bruce Momjian and Frédéric Descamps.

I’m also looking forward to MySQL on Google Cloud, by Leo Tolstoy and my former colleague Jeremy Cole. And speaking of former colleagues, Colin’s MariaDB Server talk is clearly going to be an exciting one, a different angle to what I will touch upon in my keynote.

Last and by no means least: I already attended an earlier version of Valerii Kravchuk’s super-cool tracing and performance debugging presentation, but it was so good that I will want to look at it again. ∎

Kaj Arno

Kaj Arnö is CEO of the MariaDB Foundation. He is a software industry generalist, having served as VP Professional Services, VP Engineering, CIO and VP Community Relations of MySQL AB prior to the acquisition by Sun Microsystems. At Sun, Kaj served as MySQL Ambassador to Sun and Sun VP of Database Community. Board member at Footbalance Systems Oy (Helsinki, Finland). Past founder, CEO and 14 year main entrepreneur of Polycon Ab (Finland). Kaj is a co-founder of MariaDB Corporation Ab, and served on its Executive Team in several positions, most recently Chief Evangelist. Kaj lives and works in Munich, Germany, and during summer often in Nagu, Finland. He is a citizen of both countries. Kaj holds a M.Sc. (Eng.) from Helsinki University of Technology (now Aalto University) and an MBA from Hanken School of Economics. He tweets @kajarno.

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