Nov 21, 2009

18/Nov/2009 - The Open Source Data Warehouse Revolution

On the 18th of November we've hold in Milan an event focused on Open Source Data Warehousing.

For many organizations, data warehouses are simply too costly to buy, too costly to implement and too costly to maintain. Data warehousing is still a luxury of deep-pocketed organizations, although the resulting benefits can be virtually reaped by companies of all sizes.
Open Source Software is changing the rules again, lowering the economic barriers to undertake Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing projects.

During the event we proved that MySQL can help organizations to achieve higher ROI on their projects. With the support of our partners, Infobright and Talend, we showed how to design, deploy and manage a multi-terabyte Data Warehouse with Open Source Software.

Participants have shown a lot of interest in MySQL, Infobright and Talend. More informations can be found here: http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/application-scenarios/data-warehouse.html

We hope to host similar events in the future. Thanks to all participants!
Luca

Oct 31, 2009

Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2010

Gartner has released a few days ago the Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2010 list. Here you can see the wordle cloud:




While I don't want to spend time talking about  the usual suspects (Cloud, Green, Mobile and Virtualization) I wish to share my thoughts on two topics: Advanced Analytics and Reshaping the Data Center.

Advanced Analytics  
I'm not surprised that a branch of Business Intelligence is still in the list after years of top priority amongst CIOs. Business Intelligence is one of the fields that I love and it's promise is to transform in gold everything it touches, like King Midas. Why is this still on the list? Has something changed in these years?
There are good news. Open Source Software is changing the competitive landscape allowing CIOs, BI Managers and End Users to gather deep insight into business data at a fraction of the cost. I'd like to mention some of the most interesting technologies in the Open Source ecosystem:
  • MySQL - This is my favourite! ;) 
  • Infobright - A leading columnar storage engine for MySQL;
  • Pentaho - End to End Business Intelligence Suite;
  • Jaspersoft - Open Source Business Intelligence Suite;
  • Talend - Open Source ETL/Data Integration Suite;
This list is partial, but it witness the vitality of Open Source into this particular field. And with this I'll move to the next topic.

Reshaping the Data Center
Gartners is clearly saying: "Dear CIOs, IT Architects and CTOs: your datacenter has been designed twenty years ago... it's time to change."
As MySQL we've promoted a scale-out approach and reading through the lines of Gartner's research it seems that this has proved to be a sound strategy to reduce costs in time of economical crisis.

In conclusion I think that nowadays we cannot avoid to include an Open Source strategy in our plans for the future, whilst not excluding a mix of all the emerging technologies, like Cloud and Virtualization.

Regards,
Luca



Oct 24, 2009

Supporting Bioinformatics with Open Source

Yesterday we realeased the press release titled "Italy's CASPUR Relies on MySQL Enterprise to Support its Scientific Research" and I want to spend a few lines in commenting it.

First of all it was a pleasant surprise for me how extensively MySQL in particular and Open Source Software in general is pervasive into scientific research. I particularly appreciated a quote from Caspur:
CASPUR selected MySQL™ because it is a top database choice for the Bioinformatics industry, preferred by both application developers and the computational biology research community, thanks to its simplicity and high-performance.
One of the reasons why they have chosen MySQL answers a common question asked by our user base. The reason is high-performance, and the concern is about MySQL scalability.

We usually address these topics by talking about our huge customer base in the Web, citing Google, Facebook or Yahoo! is usually a good proof that MySQL can scale if the right architecture is chooses. We also highlight the fact that MySQL Cluster is powering the world most demanding telecommunication application and this is convincing as well.

CASPUR is using MySQL on a 2048 core cluster system for High Performance Computing (HPC) and it is a completely different story; it's all about science. It's all about analyzing huge amounts of data for the advantage of the human being. MySQL and Open Source Software are helping humanity; we are honored to have such customers.

Luca

Oct 12, 2009

Web Based Seminars (aka Webinars), why not?

On Thursday the 8th, we delivered the most successful italian MySQL webinar ever. We had about 350 registrations, thanks for your support and constant participation!
We also awarded a wonderful MySQL t-shirt to the one who first answered correctly to a trivia question, congratulations to the winner.

Looking into the story of italian webinars, here is the ranking in terms of registrations:
  1. Getting Started with MySQL on Windows
  2. Scalable MySQL High Availability Architectures
  3. A guide to Scaling MySQL
  4. MySQL Performance Tuning - Top 5 Tips
  5. Introducing MySQL 5.0
If you were unable to participate you can click here and listen to the on-demand versions. Others noteworthy webinars are the one that we delivered with our partners:

In conclusion, what I've learned from this fulfilling experience?
Delivering web based seminars (webinars for short) is a great way to stay in touch with customers and to address specific topics. This powerful tool can be used to update on product directions, sales offers, technical topics and present joint partner solutions. The audience can sit in the comfort of their home or office and receive a quick update without spending too much time or money.
If you are a Sales Engineer, Sales Manager, Marketing Manager, Product Manager or if you simply want to stay virtually in touch with your users, this is a delivery method worth of consideration.

Do you have advices on a topic that you wish to hear in the upcoming italian MySQL webinars? Please comment this post and we'll examine your ideas.

Oct 7, 2009

Getting Started with MySQL on Windows

For the italian session, we have just broken the 300 participants barrier and we aim to reach 400 registrants. The webinar will be held tomorrow morning at 10am (CET) in italian; you still have time to register here.
Please help us to overachieve this goal!

In this presentation we'll cover the benefits of deploying MySQL on Windows. You will learn the basic “How-To’s” of installation, security and configuration. We will show you how to start using MySQL tools on Windows, such as MySQL Workbench and MySQL Enterprise Monitor with the new Query Analyzer. If you are interested in learning how to get started with MySQL on Windows this webinar is for you.

To have more informations on this topic, please go to our Get Started with MySQL page. If you don't speak italian, you can register to the upcoming english EMEA session here.

Oct 6, 2009

MySQL is Emerging in the Emerging Markets

A survey of more than 400 developers showed that MySQL is closing the lead Microsoft's SQL server has in emerging markets. More than 50 percent of developers in the emerging market countries said they are using Microsoft's SQL Server, but 46 percent said they are using MySQL.

This is another great news, after the results coming from the european SMBs survey. The adoption and usage of MySQL is still growing despite the economic downturn. Go MySQL!

Oct 5, 2009

MySQL, Open Source, SMBs and my Home Country

I know that you may have read about it before, but I want to summarize some interesting evolutions of MySQL and the Open Source adoption in Europe.
I will reflect on it with a specific focus on Italy, for two reasons: Italy is my home country and is of the territories where I work as a Sales Engineer (together with Iberia and Emerging Markets).

MySQL has just released survey of 637 small and medium-size businesses (less than 500 employees) in Europe documenting open source usage. According to the survey the future will be full of satisfaction for MySQL.

You can read the comments in Zack's post here. I just want to highlight a few notable facts in the survey:
  • More that 50% of interviewed companies are using open source software and Italy is in the top 3, behind Germany and France;
  • When asked if they intend to increase the usage of MySQL, this time Italian companies are at the top, planning to expand the adoption by 64%;
  • In two years only 15% of Italian SMBs will not use have any open source product in their infrastructure;
  • 57% of Italian users are taking advantage of open source for critical projects;
  • Top reasons for adopting MySQL are: cost savings, performance and scalability and ease of use;
I always considered my country as part of the late majority in the technology adoption lifecycle, but this time I'm very proud that we are amongst the top open source adopters. Another interpretation of this phenomenon is that open source is really main stream now and thus we are not as ingenious as I may think, but this is another story. :-)

If you want to stay updated on what I'm doing, feel free to follow me on twitter or get in touch via LinkedIn. According to the survey, the MySQL team will work a lot in the next months!

Sep 15, 2009

Sorry for the old posts...

Hi All,

I was moving some old posts and although I've changed the date you will see a lot of them.
Sorry for flooding Planet MySQL.

Luca

Sep 14, 2009

What's New in the MySQL Enterprise Fall 2009 Release - EMEA & Italy

MySQL is proud to announce the MySQL Enterprise Fall 2009 Release!

The MySQL Enterprise Fall 2009 Release includes the MySQL Enterprise Monitor with the improved MySQL Query Analyzer - now with new correlation graphs for faster performance optimization. Join our webinar series and see a live demonstration of the new MySQL Enterprise Monitor and the improved Query Analyzer, hear about the new Advisor rules and support services and get live answers to your questions from our MySQL experts.

The "What's New in the MySQL Enterprise Fall 2009 Release - EMEA" web presentation will be delivered on Wednesday, September 16.

For those of you who speak Italian I'll deliver a local version of it on the Thursday, September 24 at 10am CET. Register and listen to it from the comfort of your home or office via this link:
"Novità della Versione autunno 2009 di MySQL Enterprise"

Happy learning and see you online.

Aug 27, 2009

MySQL Webinars in the upcoming weeks...

After the slow down due to vacation and warm weather we are ready for a series of educative Italian webinars on MySQL. Here is the list:

Semptember 10@10am CET - "Top 5 Tuning tips for MySQL"
Are your applications slow during peak times? Is the database running slowly? Do you find difficult to pinpoint performance problems? Then this webinar is for you!I will cover the top 5 tips to speed up your MySQL databases from a developer as well as DBA point of view.

October 8@10am CET - "Introduction to MySQL for Windows"
Do you know that MySQL is used extensively on Windows? Would you like to learn the tools that we provide?
Join this webinar! We will discuss the advantages of using MySQL on the Windows Platform.

There will be one more in September... but it will be revealed in the next days. Stay tuned!
Luca

Jul 15, 2009

Proven and Cost Effective BI Deployment Strategies with MySQL and Pentaho

What if you could evaluate, deploy and maintain a Data Warehouse (DW) and Business Intelligence (BI) solution for up to 90% less than the cost of proprietary software? What if you can find a solution that has been adopted by customers in all industries and is technically sound and scalable?

You can, with open source Data Warehousing from MySQL and Business Intelligence from Pentaho.

Join this webcast to find out about real world BI/DW deployment strategies that that offer you robust capabilities, yet with a lower total cost of ownership (TCO).

The MySQL and Pentaho solution has been proven in diverse deployments, from small companies to large enterprises. The subscription support model aligns customer and vendor interests, lowering both your costs and project risks. Join this webcast and learn how to be successful in your BI/DW projects. We will show you how MySQL and Pentaho can easily provide a complete end-to-end solution at a fraction of the cost of the proprietary products.

Please join us in this informative Italian Webinar.

Apr 15, 2009

3rd Gestionale Open Developer Conference

On January the 9th, 2009 I've presented at the 3rd Annual Gestionale Open Developer Conference.

Gestionale Open is an open source ERP gathering interest in Italy, since it is compliant with local laws. This project has been started years ago by an entrepreneur with decades of experience in the field and now it's used by 100s of customers. They have concluded the porting to MySQL, which is now the default database for the product!

There were nearly 100 participants. Gestionale Open has catalyzed the interest of customers, distributors, software developers. It's nice to see complex business applications moving to open source.

The title of my presentation was: "Enterprise Innovation". I've chosen a banal title, but wishing to make an interesting dissertation on why MySQL is fuelling the innovation and who is using MySQL to seed projects and evolve from simple ideas to real business.

You can have a look at the presentation here:



If you need more informations on Gestionale Open feel free to look at: http://www.gestionaleopen.org

Informations on MySQL are available here: http://www.mysql.com

Thanks to all who attended.

New Recorded Webinars Available.

Sorry for the delay, as you can see I'm not a proficient blogger. :)

Anyway, I'd like to point out that in the last months I've delivered many new Italian webinars on interesting topics. The full list of recorded webinars can be found here:

http://www.mysql.it/news-and-events/on-demand-webinars/

Anyway it's worth to mention the latest like:

  • Migliorate le prestazioni con MySQL Query Analyzer;
  • Migrazione a MySQL, fa per voi;
  • Come scalare MySQL con Sun Systems;
Many others are coming. Hint: Data Warehousing is one of the most interesting field for MySQL!

See you soon.

Luca