My Guidebook for Percona Live Amsterdam, 2015 - Part I

Unfortunately I am not going to Percona Live Amsterdam 2015 that starts next week. Somebody has to work and keep those customers happy who prefer to work as usual even during such a festival.

I am still asking myself: if I'd be able to go there, what tutorials and sessions I'd like to attend (besides those I'd present)? "All of them" is not a correct answer, as often great and useful sessions happens at the same time in different places. So, I decided to create a list of sessions for myself (as a reminder to check slides at least after they are published), and I'd like to share it.

I tried to pick up one session per slot. but for most slots this was liteally impossible even for myself - I just can not decide now what's more important for my very limited set of database-related interests. So, you will see 2 sessions from most time slots. I tried to add some comments about speakers and other reasons for my interest.

On September 21 we have tutorials, and I'd visit one of these two (they are both full day ones it seems):

• Advanced Percona XtraDB Cluster in a nutshell, la suite : Hands on tutorial not for beginners! - I've visited tutorials on PXC conducted by Frederic Descamps (aka LeFred) and other my colleagues more than once, and it's always great experience and easy way to study something new about Galera clusters. Be ready for a lot of work to do during this tutorial if you really want to follow it closely and get experience
• Query Optimization: From 0 to 10 (and up to 5.7) - Usually I try to keep myslef as far from clusters (including PXC/Galera) as possible, so chances are high that I'd visit this tutorial by my former colleague Jaime Crespo instead. He is a very experinced trainer who now works on real life problems as DBA, so it's quite possible that I'd study a trick or two or get a chance to discuss some real life query optimization issues and approaches.
  

No comments on reception @ Delirium Cafe, sorry.

September 22 starts with keynotes, and usually I am present at all of them. But even if I'd meet colleagues to talk to ASAP durings keynotes slot, I'd still like to visit at least this one, MySQL and MongoDB for web-scale data management., by Mark Callaghan from Facebook.I am following him as a writer, speaker and customer for many years already and I am really interested in his opinions on MongoDB. Really, why would a person like him decide to work on yet another database (after Informix, Oracle, MySQL, many more), especially MongoDB? I'd like to understand...

 The first sessions slot that day is really a problem for me. I'd like to visit these sessions:

• InnoDB: A journey to the core - I'd like to be there both because I am interested in InnoDB internals and because all previous sessions by Jeremy Cole and Davi Arnaut I had a chance to attend were just great.
• XtraDB 5.6 and 5.7: Key Performance Algorithms -on the other hand, I'd like to listen to my colleague Laurynas. I do not yet follow InnoDB changes in 5.7 really closely (if only new types of locks added) and even less I know about Percona's plans on XtraDB for 5.7. Good chance to find out.

 Next slot is again a problem:

• State of MySQL Group Replication - It was nice to listen to Nuno Carvalho last year at Oracle Open World. This is a nice feature that has a long way to go still to be ready to compete with Galera, but it may go far beyond it as well and become a foundation for new HA architectures for MySQL. Who knows... I'd like to find out what they were able to achieve over last year.
• Performance Schema and Sys Schema in MySQL 5.7 - at the same time, I'd really want to listen to Mark Leith, whom I named a "godfather of PERFORMANCE_SCHEMA" two years ago. I do not speak on this topic any more, but I am still intersted in proper instrumentation for MySQL.

After the lunch I'd go directly to attend Giuseppe Maxia's Pivot tables: analytics in pure SQL. I used to be a big fan of Oracle DBMS's analytical functions back in my Oracle-related days, till 2005. I always wonder about the ways to live without them in MySQL and still execute queries efficiently. Also, I just like to listen to Giuseppe no matter what he is talking about.

Next slot is also clear for me. I'd go to The highs and lows of semi-synchronous replication to find out more on Facebook's experience with semi-sync replication.

Then I'd have a problem again:

• MySQL 5.7: What Is New in the Optimizer? - I am always happy to meet my colleague since good old Sun's days Manyi Lu and find out what's going to happen with MySQL optimizer in 5.7 GA from
  Olav Sandstå. I know a lot about their plans since Oracle Open World 2014, but it would be useful to check the progress and details now when MySQL 5.7 GA is probably 100% feature complete.
• Solid State Storage for Your MySQL Databases: What You Need to Know to Optimize Performance -on the other hand, I'd like to listen to Peter Zaitsev explaining how to use SSDs efficiently for MySQL. These days I see that customers have a lot of hope on SSDs, but often are still faced with notable I/O performance problems. Maybe I just miss few things to check while trying to help them...

The last slot for the day is also intersting:

• Database Encryption on MariaDB 10.1 - Customers often ask about encryption for MySQL data, and it seems MariaDB finally has the answer that would make them happy. It's useful to check the details with Sergei Golubchik to set proper expectations to them. Blame me for whatever, but I like to meet MariaDB engineers. Most of them were my colleagues back in MySQL AB, and they still do their job well.
• Anatomy of a Proxy Server: MaxScale Internals -I had not cared much about this new technology until recently, but it becomes incresingly popular from what I read in different sources. Maybe it's time to study how it works andwhat it can provide.

Again, no comments on Community Dinner at Booking.com - I wish I'd be there... 

More on sessions I'd like to attend on September 23 in the next post that should be ready on Monday, September 21.