Sun debuts MySQL 5.1 with no licensing change

Sun Microsystems announced today that MySQL 5.1 will be available this quarter.

When this quarter? Sun won't specify the date of the "pending" release but was good enough to post a "near final" release candidate today at http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/.

The upgraded open source database, which Sun bought along with the company in February, features enhanced partitioning and replication as well as a new event scheduler and an upgrade advisor for the database's enterprise monitor. MySQL 5.1 was launched at the sixth annual mySQL conference this week.

For example, version 5.1 will offer table and index partitioning, which allows for faster query responses, and two new forms of replication: row-based replication and hybrid based replication. The row based option replicates just the changes to data while the hybrid approach allows for the chnage only, the delta between master and server slave servers, or statement-based replication.

The event scheduler is also a  new feature that allows users to schedule recurring tasks and the new upgrade advisor for the monitor, available only MySQL Enterrpise subscribers, automates rules that monitor the database.

As usual, MySQL 5.1 will be available as a freely available community server that is licensed udner the GPL , an enterprise server with subscription support, and an embedded edition for OEMs that wish to bundle the sofwtare with their hardware.

And no, there are no changes to MySQL licensing under new ownership, Sun says.