MySQL Database on Linux Now Optimized for Intel Itanium 2 Processor

SEATTLE, Wash. - (March 25, 2003) - MySQL AB, developer of the world's most popular Open Source database, today announced that it has optimized the MySQL™ database for the 64-bit Intel® Itanium® 2 processor running the Linux operating system. MySQL for Linux running on an Itanium 2 platform is now available for downloading at the MySQL AB Web site at www.mysql.com/downloads/.

The new Intel Itanium 2 platform and Linux help extend open standards-based computing to the enterprise and provide a next-generation computing environment for large, high-performance MySQL database applications.

“The Itanium 2 architecture includes world-class capabilities targeted at large databases, data mining and other enterprise applications for which MySQL is increasingly being used as the database engine,” said Sam Al-Schamma, director, European Developer Programs at Intel.“Running MySQL on the combination of Linux and the Itanium 2 platform allows organizations to get the most out of their infrastructure by combining an industry-standard 64-bit platform with the speed, stability and low cost of a proven Open Source database.”

Designed for business critical applications, the Intel Itanium 2 processor is uniquely architected for demanding enterprise and technical applications, handling terabytes of data with high performance through 64 bits of usable address space. The Itanium 2 processor and Linux enable businesses and organizations to maximize their investments by delivering industry-leading performance at a lower cost and with greater choice than proprietary technologies.

The MySQL database is a high-performance relational database management system for Web site and business application development and deployment. With a streamlined but functionally-rich feature set, the MySQL database maximizes speed, stability and ease of deployment. Support for Linux/Itanium 2 adds to the wide range of platforms MySQL is already available on, including all major Linux distributions as well as Unix, Mac OS X and Windows operating systems.

The Itanium-2 binary distribution of the MySQL database version 4.0 and later is compiled with the Intel 7.0 C++ compiler for the Itanium architecture. By using this compiler, Itanium-2 specific features can be exploited, which considerably increases database performance. For example, typical CPU-intensive MySQL tasks like frequently- executed SELECT calls can run significantly faster. Intel and MySQL are working on further performance tuning using the Intel Vtune Performance Analyzer to detect execution hot spots and to make these code sequences even faster.

“The availability of MySQL for the Itanium 2 processor allows developers to support even the most resource-intensive business and technical applications,“ said Michael (Monty) Widenius, MySQL AB CTO and co-founder. “As MySQL becomes more widely used as an enterprise database, we want to provide users with the option of developing on platforms that can support virtually unlimited amounts of data and make the most of the inherent speed of MySQL.”

Intel is an elite, “Platinum” sponsor of the MySQL User's Conference & Expo, which will be held April 10-12 in San Jose, Calif.

About MySQL

MySQL AB develops, markets and supports the MySQL database server, the world's most popular Open Source database. With an estimated 4 million installations and averaging over 27,000 software downloads per day, MySQL is quickly becoming the core of many high-volume, business-critical applications. Major corporations such as Yahoo!, Lucent Technologies, Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment, Motorola, NASA, Silicon Graphics, HP, Xerox and Cisco rely on the ultra-fast, highly-reliable MySQL database. MySQL is available under the Free Software/Open Source GNU General Public License (GPL) or a non-GPL commercial license. For more information about MySQL, please go to www.mysql.com.

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