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I've always had a dream of being able to use what we are doing at PalominoDB not only for our for profit clients, but for those who go out day to day helping those who need it.  We always try to work with clients who make people's lives better, but there are those whose entire purpose is to provide aid, education and empowerment to those who are disadvantaged or whose freedoms are at risk.  I am constantly inspired by companies such as Worldreader (http://blog.worldreader.org/) are a perfect example - who work to provide e-Readers to those who have no access to books or libraries in places such as Kenya.  The challenge has always been how to provide support from our team when they are constantly busy.  In a growing organization, resources are tight, and we are blessed with non-stop work from world class clients.

 

As we've grown to a sustainable size, I've had more time to think about issues such as this, and I would like to announce our newest program at PalominoDB - donation of hours.  A good portion of our clients are on retainer agreements with a monthly minimum.  Sometimes work is light, sometimes it is heavy and some clients just keep us around as insurance and rarely use our hours.  Regardless, we have to staff for a certain workload and thus must enforce the minimum.  I've always found myself frustrated at having to charge for hours not worked, and constantly brainstorm ways to provide maximum benefit to our regular clients.  

 

PalominoDB would now like to announce our donation of hours program - whereby we are setting up relationships with non-profits who can use our resources - and the hours for this work will be donated by our clients who have unused hours and wish to see them go to a good cause, rather than paying the 50% unused hours rate.  Clients can also donate a fixed amount of hours per month to the program.  We will start our program with one non-profit, Worldreader, and will solicit for other companies who can make effective use of our resources.   Should you know of any deserving companies, please don't hesitate to let us know!

 

You can see a video of Worldreader's work here.  Please take a look at their donations page here, as there are great opportunities to donate for e-readers or books or to sponsor classes and schools.

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PalominoDB is very excited about our participation in the upcoming PerconaLive conference in London.  We'll have two of our European staff presenting.  On Monday, Jonathan Levin will be doing a tutorial on Advanced MySQL Scaling Strategies for Developers, and on Tuesday Rene Cannao will be presenting on MySQL Backup and Recovery Tools and Techniques.  Rene and Jonathan are two of our newer team members, and represent an exciting growth in staff outside of the US; Jonathan being in the UK and Rene being in Malta.  I know I'm thrilled to get out to London to meet a lot of new folks in our community.

We did get a chance to present at PerconaLive in NYC this year as well, which was quite a lot of fun, and the positive reception Sheeri's session got was gratifying.  Percona has become a huge part of our community and has provided great value in their information share, tools, services and now conferences - including the MySQL Conference & Expo 2012.  Having been involved in professional MySQL consulting and remote support for four years has been quite the adventure, and the fact that so many companies find space to create, share and prosper only shows the viability of open source software and the communities behind it.  

I know we at PalominoDB are quite proud to share space with companies such as Pythian, Blue Gecko, SkySQL and, of course, Percona. We are proud to support open source solutions across the board, and are even more excited to have grown to a place where we have the resources to contribute back to them, to non-profits and to the growth of our clients and every person on our team.  Here's to an exciting and brilliant future, and a great conference!

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Last night at the Oracle OpenWorld MySQL Community Reception, there were lots of old and new friends milling about.  It occurred to me that there is one very important thing Oracle has NOT changed about the MySQL world - the rock stars and higher-ups are still readily accessible.

One of the things I love about being in the open source community is that you can have an in-depth conversation with someone, and only later on find out that this person is famous.  For the most part, rock stars and important people are readily accessible.  They stay in the same hotels that attendees do, they take the same elevators, they are not whisked away by bodyguards, and they do not play the "don't you know who I am?" card.

Now, it's not surprising that the community rock stars like Mark Callaghan, Baron Schwartz, Giuseppe Maxia and Sarah Novotny are still as accessible as ever.  However, Ed Screven and Thomas Ulin were also around for the party, and I can confirm that Thomas was one of the last dozen or so to leave (Ronald Bradford and I closed out the party and were the last to leave).

So, kudos to Oracle for not keeping your VIPs locked up in a bunker.  I am very glad to see this aspect of open source culture still thriving.

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Last night at the Oracle OpenWorld MySQL Community Reception, there were lots of old and new friends milling about.  It occurred to me that there is one very important thing Oracle has NOT changed about the MySQL world - the rock stars and higher-ups are still readily accessible.

One of the things I love about being in the open source community is that you can have an in-depth conversation with someone, and only later on find out that this person is famous.  For the most part, rock stars and important people are readily accessible.  They stay in the same hotels that attendees do, they take the same elevators, they are not whisked away by bodyguards, and they do not play the "don't you know who I am?" card.

Now, it's not surprising that the community rock stars like Mark Callaghan, Baron Schwartz, Giuseppe Maxia and Sarah Novotny are still as accessible as ever.  However, Ed Screven and Thomas Ulin were also around for the party, and I can confirm that Thomas was one of the last dozen or so to leave (Ronald Bradford and I closed out the party and were the last to leave).

So, kudos to Oracle for not keeping your VIPs locked up in a bunker.  I am very glad to see this aspect of open source culture still thriving.

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Would you like to work with the biggest websites and social networks in the world? Do you want to support large enterprises with their database initiatives? Would you like to assist ISVs and OEMs providing the technology that powers their products?

In the MySQL Sales Consulting organization we do just that.

You’ll support MySQL partners, customers and prospects across EMEA, evangelize our products, assist marketing and cooperate with product management to shape the future of MySQL.

Sounds interesting? We're actively looking for senior professionals to join the team!
Feel free to reach me on LinkedIn for more information or have a look at the links below:

• Germany
• Spain
• Austria
• Switzerland

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Rapid Application Development (RAD) is a way of developing computer software applications with less effort than the traditional means.

RAD tools focus on providing code generation and automated testing capabilities with the use of convention over configuration to provide a streamlined workflow to create applications.

Even with the most advanced and easiest to use RAD tools, there are times which the traditional enterprise and the business software development vendors which are having their own implementations and in-house built frameworks are continuously refusing to adopt them.

Most of the misconceptions on the RAD are based on FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) which has been created around the internal complexity of the RAD tools.

Here we take a look at the biggest common misconceptions on RAD tool adoption in the enterprise.

1. RAD tools are magical

This is a common myth among the developers who insist on writing their own code from scratch.

Due to the elegance and the accuracy of properly generated applications, they will assume that the changing of generated code would cause the application to lose its beauty.

They are reluctant to see patterns in commonly developed applications which could be easily generated by the use of RAD tools.

2. You can’t make changes to the generated code

Most of the code generated by the RAD tools are editable, but takes a developer who has the understanding on the related technologies.

When people do not have the exposure to the technologies beneath the RAD generated code, they will start to spread fear and doubt on the customizability of the generated application.

3. RAD tools are for simple applications

Yes, simple applications can be generated by RAD tools, but it doesn’t limit you from creating a large application with the use of the tool.

As long as your application is properly designed, RAD tools will always have a solution.

Agree or not, most of the current applications with support to the cloud are the ones built with RAD tools.

4. You can’t make mistakes while generating the code

Most RAD tools have the capability of correcting mistakes done while generating the code. In most cases, even if you have made a mistake that the tool cannot reverse, there will be a manual way you can correct it.

5. You can’t make complex user interfaces with RAD tools

First, ask yourself whether you really need a complex user interface. The users are really comfortable using a simple, elegant and consistent user interface, rather than a complex and bloated user interface.

Even if you want a complex user interface, you can always integrate your generated code to your own user interface.

6. RAD is for startups, not for big businesses

If you are a big business, you will benefit more from RAD than a startup, because your development and testing time would be significantly reduced due to the reuse of patterns.

Actually, big businesses use RAD, but will not tell you.

7. You can’t integrate RAD applications with other systems

This again is due to the lack of knowledge about the particular application development framework. Almost all of the RAD tools provide means of exposing services to integrate your generated application to other applications.

8. You can’t work in a team setting or use a Version Control System (VCS)

You can always check-in your generated code to the VCS, and work in collaboration. In most of the cases, you just have to make sure only one developer is responsible for the use of tool for a particular module of the application.

9. RAD tools lock you in for a particular technology

Before asking this, ask yourself how much you is locked into the technology which you are currently using.

Most tools provide a humble way to remove the RAD tool dependencies and continue the project as a handwritten project.

10. People who can code should always code, instead of using tools

People who can cook, should always cook? No. Especially when they are given a machine which can create any delicious meal, once the guidelines are defined by the cook? No, not at all.
People, who can code, are the best people to properly use RAD tools, as they understand the tool better, and are able to extend and make the maximum use of the power of the tool.

Additionally, they can write add-ons, application specific and platform specific components to better match the business needs while increasing productivity to the organization as a whole.

11. RAD tools reduces the job security of the developers

This is largely false, as the tool would only increase productivity. Developers would have more time creating ‘applications’ instead of creating ‘application code’. As the tests and the related scripts are automatically generated they would have more time for manual testing of the application and to cater more requirements instead of battling the complexities arising from day to day changes to the application.

12. You can’t maintain generated applications with RAD tools

Before asking this question, look at your own code and see how much legacy code and technologies are still present. One thing you would understand is that application code never grows old or dies. As long as it works, it will be alive.

Using RAD tools, you will always have the particular version of the tool to make changes to the existing code based on the available capabilities. Even if a new version comes along, it will be mostly backwards compatible and would even have capabilities to support the conversion of the existing generated code to the new code to make it better. This is largely possible due to the proper use of patterns in the generated application.

13. RAD is complete

The perfect RAD tool is not yet complete, but the current tools have been evolved over the years and are usually more than enough for almost all businesses. Most tools would provide you ways to enhance the tool in order to better cater for your individual needs.

14. RAD will take your house, your spouse, everything you have and leave you with nothing.

No. Really?

These are just the biggest misconceptions; the rest will be covered in a next post on this blog.

Additional Resources:

• Wikipedia: Rapid Application Development
• Wikipedia: Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt

Frameworks and Tools

• Microsoft Visual Studio
• Grails
• Spring Roo
• CakePHP

Read more posts on this blog :

• Nokia and Symbian : Business and Software : Lessons To Be Learnt
• What Apple taught other businesses tonight.
• Flash and Runtimes on Mobile Devices, Who is right? Steve Jobs or Adobe?
• MySQL is gone. Here comes MariaDB and Drizzle.
• Is Open Source software a classic example of fail for Design by Committee?
• Why a ‘Single Line’ was added to the Solaris Terms of Use by Oracle?
• Oracle starts to monetize Free Software, is it wrong?

 

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I was asked "What's the deal with Oracle removing InnoDB?"  I had not heard this, so I did some research.  It took less than 5 minutes to figure out what happened, and it was easy to see where the confusion is.

On the MySQL products page at http://mysql.com/products/ the matrix of MySQL editions includes "MySQL Classic" which is free, "MySQL Standard" which costs $2k per year, "MySQL Enterprise" which costs $5k per year and "MySQL Cluster Carrier Grade" which costs $10k per year.

Indeed, the "MySQL Classic" does not include InnoDB.  What happened was that folks assumed that, because it was free, it was the MySQL Community edition we all know and love.

This is not true.  How do I know?  Because just above the matrix is a set of links to each edition, and if you click the "MySQL Classic" link you get to http://mysql.com/products/classic/ which explains "MySQL Classic Edition is the ideal embedded database for ISVs, OEMs and VARs developing read-intensive applications using the MyISAM storage engine."

 

So calm down, folks. 

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I wrote a guest column for GigaOm on how open source software, cloud and software as a service are helping to bring about the consumerization of IT: namely bringing simplicity where complexity reigned.  I cited some examples including New Relic, Box.net and Apple.

Open source has gone a long way toward putting power back in the hands of developers, who can download, install and deploy software without having to go through any kind of convoluted sales or budget approval process.  You want MySQL?  You can download and install in 15 minutes, and you don’t have to talk to anyone to do it.

Software as a service (SaaS) takes this to an even broader audience, enabling employees to get the kind of lightweight, consumer, self-serve capabilities in their job without even having to run their own servers.  Platforms like Amazon AWS, Heroku, Makara, RightScale and others put this same kind of SaaS power in the hands of developers...

My view: ease of use trumps a long feature list any day of the week. There are both techological reasons as well as sociological and economic reasons for why organizations are seeking greater simplicity.  Part of this stems from the fact that complex enterprise applications grew beyond the ability of most organizations to successfully adopt.  

Head over to GigaOm for the full post.

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Here at PalominoDB, we recently had the opportunity to work through a few mistakes and their aftermath.  Why is this pertinent to a blog by a database management team?  Regardless of your use of MySQL, Oracle, Cassandra or whatever technology you've deemed appropriate, it is the management of operations that becomes the true differentiator in your service providing.  Dealing with these recent mistakes got me thinking on what a crucial component of growth these moments are.  In the world of operations, mistakes can be quite visible, and are not uncommon to any of us.  One might argue that one of the biggest parts of our jobs is managing risk and mitigating impact of mistakes that will inevitably occur.

In the moment, it is easy to get very upset with someone who makes a mistake, or two or even three in a week.  I've learned from the best clients on how to deal with mistakes, by how they deal with ours. Mistakes are typically insights into a broken process, a bad behavior pattern or a lack of information and tools.  If you do manage risk and have planned appropriately, you should be able to survive and handle the immediate effects of the mistake.  Then, you have an opportunity to identify the issues, and improve them.  Anyone who sees a mistake (and I mean a true mistake of ignorance, versus a mistake of gross negligence) as a chance only to yell, blame and generally act discourteously is not interested in growth.  

I've found in life that growth is inevitably fostered by mistakes, occasional hardship, and even pain.  With an attitude of growth, these become quite manageable, if not welcome.  Recognizing this should help you reduce your stress around your own mistakes, and focus on the growth opportunities present.

So how do you deal with that mistake?  I learned a long time ago that the ability to truly, genuinely apologize is another one of those crucial life skills, and here is the perfect time to use that skill.  An immediate acknowledgment of your mistake, recognition of the impact your mistake has made, and a sincere request to offer amends are the parts of a good apology.  Don't focus on avoiding responsibility, trying to pass the buck, share blame, etc...  You are responsible for your part in this, and that is what you are apologizing for.

Next, you dig into what happened, and why it happened.  Perform a post-mortem, talk in ways that do not make anyone feel attacked, and find out where the root issue is.  Rather than focusing on blame and punishment, focus on the core issue, and put together a concise plan of attack to address the issue once it is exposed.  With this approach, continued improvement, and an environment that fosters openness and transparency becomes the norm.

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About six weeks ago I posted about leaving Pythian. I had a month off in which I spent quality time with my husband, including packing up our apartment to move two blocks away. I also spent some time doing some planning and organizing for OpenSQLCamp Boston, happening in 6 weeks. Many people have been wondering what my next move is.

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