Features of MySQL

What is MySQL?

According to Statista, MySQL is the second most popular database, only slightly trailing Oracle Database. MySQL is one of the most popular open-source databases today. One of the market's most reliable and interactive databases, Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the abbreviation for Structured Query Language

It organizes data into several tables with data types linked to each other. A relational database is created, modified, and extracted using SQL; the language programmers use to create, modify, and extract data from the database. 

With MySQL, users can interact with the database without external programs. They can also use it with other programs for applications that require relational database capabilities. It is used as the default database in popular CMS options such as Drupal, Joomla, phpBB, and WordPress due to its reputation for reliability. It is part of the popular LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Python/Perl/PHP). 

This article's purpose is to describe MySQL's benefits and features briefly.  

Features Of MySQL 

There is a wide range of benefits and features offered by MySQL, despite it being a free version. On the other hand, its competitors have locked out some features for the paid version.

Open Source

With a GNU General Public License, MySQL Community Edition is open-source and enterprise-ready. Other options within the ecosystem - like MariaDB - can provide similar and beyond functionality to users who want equitable proprietary functionality of MySQL.

High Performance

• MySQL's unique storage engine architecture makes it faster, more reliable, and cheaper.
• Compared to other databases, it delivers very high performance without losing an essential part of the software. Due to different cache memories, the utilities load quickly. 
• A trigger, a stored procedure, and a view are used to make developers more productive. A fast load utility with separate memory caches and table index partitioning is provided. 
• There are a lot of benchmark tests that support the fact that MySQL is a very fast database language.

Memory Efficiency

• Purify (a commercial memory leak detector) and Valgrind (a GPL tool) was used to test for memory leaks. There is minimal memory leakage, so its efficiency is high.

Compatibility

• MySQL is compatible with a wide array of operating systems, including Novell NetWare, Windows or Linux, UNIX (operating systems such as Sun Solaris, AIX, and DEC UNIX), OS/2, and FreeBSD. 
• MySQL supports client-server communication over networks and the Internet so that clients can run on the same computer as the server or another computer.

Security

• Database access is restricted only to authorized users with MySQL's powerful mechanisms. A flexible and secure privilege and password system that enables host-based authentication. 
• There is a vibrant developer community, and many CVE patches are released before they are announced since it is widely adopted within the enterprise. 
• MySQL 8.0 supports dual passwords, which allows us to transition to a new password by using one as the current password and a secondary password as a backup. When connecting to a server, all password traffic is encrypted.

Scalability & Limits

• Multi-threading makes MySQL easy to scale. With the right configuration, it can handle almost any amount of data, up to 50 million rows or more. 
• MySQL is a highly scalable RDBMS with various options that can be modified, customized, and enhanced in multiple ways. File sizes are limited to about 4 GB by default. There is a theoretical limit of 8 TB of data that can be stored in MySQL.
  

Data Types

• It supports many types of data: signed and unsigned integers from 1 to 8 bytes long, FLOAT, DOUBLE, CHAR, VARCHAR, BINARY, INTEGER, TEXT, BLOB, DATE, TIME, DATETIME, TIMESTAMP, YEAR, SET, ENUM, and OpenGIS spatial types.

Statements & Functions

• Grouping and ordering clauses are fully supported. The following group functions are supported: COUNT(), AVG(), STD(), SUM(), MAX(), MIN(), and GROUP_CONCAT().
• With ODBC and standard SQL, MySQL support LEFT and RIGHT outer joins.
• Aliases are supported for tables and columns in accordance with SQL standards.
• If a flag is set when connecting to a server, DELETE, INSERT, REPLACE, and UPDATE will return those rows which have been changed (affected).
• Detailed information about MySQL databases, storage engines, tables, and indexes can be retrieved with MySQL-specific SHOW statements. The INFORMATION_SCHEMA database is supported using standard SQL syntax.

Internals & Portability

• Tested with a variety of compilers. Compatible with a wide range of platforms. 
• CMake configuration is used for portability.
• Modules are independent and are layered on top of each other on the server. The program is fully multithreaded using kernel threads to utilize multiple CPUs easily.
• Easy to integrate with different storage engines. Providing an SQL interface to an internal database can be helpful.
• Engines for both transactional and non-transactional storage are available.
• Memory allocation is thread-based, so it is very fast.
• A highly optimized class library is used to implement SQL functions. After query initialization, there is usually no memory allocation.
• Provides the server as a separate program for the client/server networked environment.

Allow Rollback

• The MySQL database supports reversing, committing, and recovering transactions in case of a crash.

GUI Support

• With MySQL Workbench, database architects, developers, and administrators can create a unified visual database graphical user interface. 
• Among its many features, MySQL Workbench offers SQL development, data modeling, migration, and comprehensive admin tools for server configuration, user administration, backup, and more. 
• The GUI support for MySQL is available from version 5.6 and above.

Conclusion

MySQL is reliable, not only from a data perspective but also from a development perspective. Besides being mature, it has regular releases, patches, and a large developer community. It is, therefore, a safe choice compared to other, less mature RDBMS technologies. 

Accessible and iterative to improve its ability to handle modern problems, My SQL is a database management system that anyone can use . Nevertheless, MySQL does lock some advance functionality behind its paid versions. 

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