MySQL 5.6 has been released with some interesting new features and performance increases:
- What’s New in MySQL 5.6
- DBA and Developer Guide to MySQL 5.6
- InnoDB Integration with memcached:MySQL 5.6 includes a NoSQL interface, using an integrated memcached daemon that can automatically store data and retrieve it from InnoDB tables, turning the MySQL server into a fast “key-value store†for single-row insert, update, or delete operations. You can still also access the same tables through SQL for convenience, complex queries, bulk operations, application compatibility, and other strengths of traditional database software.
With this NoSQL interface, you use the familiar memcached API to speed up database operations, letting InnoDB handle memory caching using its buffer pool mechanism. Data modified through memcached operations such as ADD, SET, INCR are stored to disk, using the familiar InnoDB mechanisms such as change buffering, the doublewrite buffer, and crash recovery. The combination of memcached simplicity and InnoDB durability provides users with the best of both worlds.
- Multi-threaded Slaves
- Improved IPv6 Support – both in the bind to address option and the INET_ATON() function.
- Replication improvements.
All in all, some nice new features. Especially the memcached integration.
That said, MariaDB seems to be making inroads on MySQL with some distributions considering a switch. Some interesting reading from that project includes: