What is MariaDB? A comparison with MySQL?
MySQL developers were concerned in 2009 about Oracle Corporation’s purchase of MySQL. Because of concerns about its commercialization, they decided to develop the MariaDB database as a branch of MySQL.
It is clear that MariaDB has many similarities with MySQL, but what features and capabilities have made MariaDB one of the best open-source databases? What speed, reliability, and ease of use have made it popular? You will surely get answers to all your questions in the following article:
What is MariaDB?
The database is central to data management and storage in application and website development. Today, we have reached this degree of freedom to choose the most suitable option among the worldwide databases based on our needs, goals, and desires. When selecting a database, we should familiarize ourselves with its main features, performance, and security to see which database meets our needs.
MariaDB is developed as a branch of the MySQL database management system. Thanks to the many powerful built-in features, security, and high performance, it can easily handle the processing of small to enterprise tasks. MariaDB supports all the features of MySQL but offers additional features. MariaDB’s various plugins and tools make this database suitable for multiple applications.
This system is written in C and C++. It supports essential programming languages such as Python, Java, C#, PHP, Perl, and all major operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and macOS. Do the developers not face many restrictions when working with it?
The role of MariaDB becomes more prominent, especially when it comes to content management systems like WordPress by benefiting from this database management system, the content management system can easily publish and manage a large amount of content without programming, direct access to the website’s source code, or writing requests in the database, resulting in a professional result.
In general, being free and open source, speed, security, scalability, processing power, use of more storage engines, etc., have made large companies like Amazon Web Services, Tumblr, Wikipedia, etc., prefer this database management system. Give So, and we are not exaggerating when we say that MariaDB is among the top 10 relational databases in the world.
How does MariaDB work?
Like MySQL, MariaDB is relational. This means that the relationships between the data are defined in advance, and the data is organized as a set of tables, columns, and rows. Columns cover table attributes, and each row stores a record of table attribute values. The table’s relationship is established based on the unique identifier or the primary key. Generally, a relational database is the most common database, and MariaDB is not far behind.
The relational model keeps tables, views, and indexes separate from physical data storage. This way, administrators can manage physical data without affecting how the data is accessed as a logical structure. For example, changing the name of the database file does not affect the name of the stored tables related to the database.
Generally, when discussing “physical” and “logical,” we also discuss database operations. Logical operations allow programs to specify the content they need, physical operations dictate how data is accessed, and tasks are performed.
MariaDB has a client-server architecture, and requests from a client application, script, or API are processed and managed by the central database. Clients use SQL commands to communicate with the MariaDB server, and the retrieved data and, generally, the results of requests are sent to the client.
The advantage of the relational model is that, while being simple, it has the power, security, and scalability necessary to adapt to any organization of any shape and size.
Main and salient features of the MariaDB database
MariaDB has many features and benefits that make it stand out from MySQL and other open-source RDBMS. In the following, we will examine its most important features:
Using 12 new storage engines
Using powerful engines, this system has increased its performance and speed to a higher degree and maintains ACID properties for all transactions. Two of the most important ones are:
InnoDB: Provision of ACID properties for all transactions, foreign key support, and consequently improved database reliability
MyRocks / RocksDB: Fast, low-latency storage with a focus on things like SSD wear and better IO capacity to manage lookups and the amount of space used
MariaDB generally uses these 12 engines and other powerful plugins to process and execute transactional and analytical queries, making it perform better than MySQL in efficiently supporting all queries.
Compatibility with SQL
MariaDB is a relational database that supports the SQL language and allows you to use standard SQL functions and procedures while accessing the database.
Also, this database management system supports advanced SQL features such as functions and types of GIS data, correlation functions, and table expressions, making it easier to perform various tasks. On the other hand, many useful plugins add more features and functionality to MariaDB. For example, the Xpand plugin allows you to build SQL databases in a distributed fashion to handle any sudden changes and spikes in application traffic while maintaining constant database availability. guarantee
Galera Cluster
The primary purpose of this feature is to improve speed, prevent data loss, and increase system scalability against increased data volume and traffic. Thanks to this master-salve method, the data copy feature is provided simultaneously because it benefits from several real controller nodes that, if one fails, the enslaved people continue to work and copy the data. Continuously and synchronously, any failure and loss of data are prevented.
high security
MariaDB has become a reliable database software because it supports extraordinary security features, such as blocking dangerous queries, encrypting data clearly and transparently, and more.
MariaDB’s powerful security capabilities help protect your database against attacks such as SQL injection, DoS, etc. Another interesting point is that you can filter and block malicious queries using the MariaDB database firewall.
Parallel execution of queries
Thanks to this feature, MariaDB can process and execute multiple queries simultaneously. The feature of copying queries from the central database to another database has made the execution of queries faster.
One of MariaDB’s other advantages over MySQL is that it can handle analytical queries faster and more smoothly using OLAP capabilities.
Yarn integration
Thread pooling means that instead of opening a thread for each connection, each new connection takes its thread from the predefined threads so that the related query can be processed faster and the results can be available to the desired program without interruption.
Support for virtual columns
Another outstanding feature of MariaDB is that, with the help of virtual columns, it can manage the simultaneous access of several programs to the same column. With this feature, the developer no longer needs to manage the calculations for each application separately because the database itself does it.
ColumnStore
This plugin allows you to quickly and efficiently analyze large amounts of data. ColumnStore helps make big data analysis easier by enabling column/row data storage capabilities and parallel processing.
Also, MariaDB’s dual storage format makes complex applications that require analytical and hybrid transaction processing easy, and there is no need to maintain two separate databases to handle related queries.
Other outstanding features of this RDBMS include support for special data such as JSON and Geometry, as well as the use of timetable types to access historical database data.
What is the MariaDB database suitable for?
There is a reason that most users abandon Oracle support and use MariaDB instead of MySQL, and the reason is the optimizations and capabilities that MariaDB offers:
This database is used for various purposes, such as e-commerce, data warehousing, enterprise-level features, and reporting applications. In fact, with MariaDB, you can handle all your workloads and manage your data regardless of the size of your business.
Among the primary uses of this database, the following two items can be mentioned:
Transaction processing
Organizations’ transactional applications require support for frequent queries, fast response times, and the ability to process small amounts of data, and MariaDB is suitable for such transactions. This database’s InnoDB storage engine supports the ACID property of transactions, which makes each transaction considered a unit.
Web application
MariaDB is well-suited to web applications and e-commerce platforms. Its multi-threaded mechanisms help the application handle more loads. These mechanisms and other optical properties have improved the database’s performance, and your application or site can easily cope with the increase in traffic and rapid business growth.
Is MariaDB more suitable for Linux or Windows servers?
Of course, this database is suitable for both operating systems and provides the necessary speed and performance for data processing and management. However, the case is a little different regarding open-source technologies and tools. For example, the tools you need are available for Linux distributions when you want to build a data warehouse or use the ColumnStore or MariaDB Max Scale plugin.
So, to make a great choice, you must first identify your needs and decide on the operating system type. Get a powerful server with high performance and the potential to handle the large amounts of data and requests that MariaDB requires. Deal with them. If you are worried about the cost of a dedicated server and want a powerful server on a low budget, it is better to get a Linux or Windows virtual server.
If you care about criteria such as reliability, stability, and high performance at an affordable price, you can visit our virtual server purchase page after checking the plans.
Conclusion
MariaDB is an alternative database management system to MySQL, which has become highly popular due to its advanced features and extensions. This relational system’s speed, performance, and stability have enabled it to manage requests and large amounts of data well. It can be used in various fields, such as web applications and simple to complex transaction processing.
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