What is MariaDB?

• Definition MariaDB

  Definition MariaDB

  MariaDB is a widely used open-source, secure, high-performance enterprise database solution. It was launched in 2009 by Michael Widenius and other developers as an upgraded version of the MySQL relational database management system (RDBMS) with significant performance and security upgrades.
• Why choose MariaDB?

  Why choose MariaDB?

  Outlined below are some of the key reasons to choose MariaDB as your preferred RDBMS:

  Open-source solution: The open-source nature of the MariaDB RDBMS makes it a preferable option for organizations looking to migrate from proprietary databases like Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server. Individual developers and small businesses who want secure and free database software for small-scale projects can choose the MariaDB Community Server. The enterprise edition of MariaDB is also open-source and delivers the much-needed security, reliability, and long-term support enterprises seek while building and deploying large databases. You can read more about the benefits and challenges of monitoring and tuning open source databases here.

  Distributed SQL database: As a relational database, MariaDB supports the immensely popular database query language, SQL. It allows you to use standard SQL functions and procedures while accessing the database. MariaDB also supports advanced SQL features, such as GIS functions and data types, correlation functions, and common table expressions. Additionally, the Xpand plugin of MariaDB allows you to build and deploy distributed SQL databases to manage sudden spikes in application traffic volumes while ensuring continuous availability. It allows you to add or remove database instances based on changing demands.

  Robust data security: MariaDB Enterprise Server, being open-source and reliable database software, supports advanced data security features, such as dynamic data masking, query throttling, transparent data encryption, and more. These features are directly comparable to the security capabilities of proprietary databases like Oracle and IBM Db2. The powerful security capabilities of MariaDB can help you stay protected from SQL injection, denial of service (DoS), and other severe database attacks. You can also filter and block malicious queries through the MariaDB database firewall.

  High availability: The enterprise edition of MariaDB helps you maximize service continuity and stay prepared for unexpected database server failures by offering automatic failover, load balancing, and multi-master clustering capabilities. The database proxy of MariaDB, MaxScale, handles automatic failover by routing queries to the secondary database servers after seeing the primary database server’s inactive or unreachable status. MariaDB also provides transaction replay functionality, preventing mission-critical applications from executing pending transactions from the outset of a post server failover. And MariaDB allows you to take incremental data backups and perform point-in-time rollbacks to accelerate disaster recovery.

  Data warehousing: The ColumnStore plugin of MariaDB gives you the flexibility to use MariaDB Enterprise Server as a standalone or distributed data warehouse for analyzing large volumes of data quickly and efficiently. The ColumnStore plugin in MariaDB enables columnar data storage and a massively parallel processing (MPP) facility to help you analyze large data sets easily. Besides columnar storage, MariaDB also supports row storage to execute transactional queries rapidly. The usage of dual storage format in MariaDB makes it suitable for complex applications requiring hybrid transactional/analytical processing. It also eliminates the hassle of maintaining two separate databases for handling analytical and transactional queries individually.

  Temporal tables: MariaDB enables you to access and alter the historical data stored in your database using temporal tables. It currently supports three types of temporal tables: system versioned, application-time periods, and bitemporal tables.  Popular applications of temporal tables include forensic data analysis, e-commerce order management, and point-in-time recovery.
• What is the difference between MySQL and MariaDB?

  What is the difference between MySQL and MariaDB?

  The database structure and syntax of MariaDB are almost identical to the MySQL RDBMS. However, over the past few years, the founders of MariaDB have added many new features and functionality to make it more secure and robust than MySQL.

  Outlined below are some of the differences between MySQL and MariaDB:

  Community support: MariaDB Foundation, the organization governing the development of MariaDB, actively accepts and implements database changes and new features suggested by the individual developers and community members. On the other hand, MySQL takes longer to release new versions or fix security bugs recommended by community members. MySQL is slowly transforming into a proprietary database and thereby includes multiple closed-source modules. This is also one of the prominent reasons why the original developers of MySQL have decided to create its fork in the form of MariaDB, a more refined version of MySQL.

  Performance and scalability: MariaDB utilizes twelve different storage engines to support and execute transactional and analytical queries. The Spider storage engine in MariaDB provides transparent sharding, enabling MariaDB to use multiple database instances for parallel query processing. The Xpand plugin allows you to deploy MariaDB as a distributed SQL database to support modern applications with dynamic workloads. On the other hand, MySQL offers less scalability and performance than MariaDB. MySQL has fewer storage engines comparatively, limiting its ability to support different types of queries efficiently.

  Database structure and query language: MySQL and MariaDB utilize the relational data model to store and organize data. Both databases also provide out-of-the-box support for standard SQL procedures and functions. However, MariaDB supports advanced SQL functions such as correlation and linear regression. It also allows you to use INTERSECT and EXCEPT operators for database querying, unlike MySQL. MySQL and MariaDB also support JSON functions. However, the JSON functions in MariaDB give you better speed and performance than MySQL.

  High availability: The enterprise version of MySQL and MariaDB allows you to deploy and maintain a highly available and reliable database by offering multi-master clustering and automatic load balancing support. However, MariaDB is better than MySQL as it provides advanced high availability features, such as transaction replay, session restore, and connection migration, to ascertain uninterrupted working of mission-critical applications in the event of a database server failover. The zero-interruption failover capabilities of MariaDB are directly comparable to Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC), a high availability database solution.

  Security: MySQL and MariaDB offer robust enterprise data security features, such as data encryption, multi-factor authentication, and database firewalls to help prevent severe database attacks and costly data breaches. However, MariaDB takes your database security to the next level by offering powerful security features, including dynamic data masking and query throttling. Data masking ensures sensitive customer and business information remains enciphered in MariaDB to prevent unwanted disclosure. Query throttling limits the number of connection requests during an active database session to impede DoS attacks.