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The MySQL database server is the world's most popular open source database.

With more than five million active installations, MySQL has quickly become the core of many high volume, business-critical applications.

Customers such as Yahoo!, Google, Cisco, Sabre Holdings, HP and NASA are realizing significant cost savings by using MySQL's high performance, reliable database management software to power large web sites, business-critical enterprise applications and packaged software applications.

MySQL provides APIs for the languages C, C++, Eiffel, Java, Perl, PHP and Python. OLE DB and ODBC providers exist for MySQL data connection in the Microsoft environment. A MySQL .NET native provider is also available, which allows native MySQL to . NET access without the need for OLE DB.

MySQL is most commonly used for web applications and for embedded applications and has become a popular alternative to proprietary database systems because of its speed and reliability.

MySQL can run on UNIX, Windows and Mac OSX.

"Weather.com is migrating away from commercial software in favor of open-source alternatives - and the savings are already rolling in. "And that confidence extends beyond the IT staff, Agronow says. "Now when I talk to senior management about moving from Oracle to MySQL they don't ask me, 'Are you sure?'" he says. "They ask me, 'When?'"""

http://www.computerworld.com/newsletter/0,4902,92583,00.html?nlid=AM

Some of major competitors to MySQL are PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle. 4.1.2.1.3.1.

MySQL has many strengths, including high performance, low cost, easy configuration and learning curve, portable, and the source code is available.



http://dev.mysql.com/tech-resources/benchmarks
http://mysqld.active-venture.com/MySQL_Benchmarks.html

Many benchmarks show MYSQL to be orders of magnitude faster than most of the competition.

The current version of MySQL does not support stored procedures (used to store business logic), however future versions will. Stored procedures bundle SQL with an API and serve to protect business rules within a database application. It is common practice to utilise stored procedures to protect sensitive business rules from other joint application developers and web hosts.