Oracle is expected to launch the general-availability version of MySQL 5.5 during a webcast event on Wednesday.
The event will be hosted by Tomas Ulin, vice president of MySQL development, and Rob Young, senior MySQL product manager, who will update attendees on the latest developments with the open-source database.
Oracle announced a release candidate version of 5.5 at its OpenWorld conference in September. MySQL 5.5 will deliver significant usability, reliability and performance enhancements, Oracle said at the time.
Benchmark tests showed the release candidate gaining up to 1,500 per cent performance gains for read-write operations and up to 500 per cent on read-only operations when run on Windows, in contrast to MySQL 5.1. Linux performance grew up to 360 per cent for read-writes and 200 per cent for read-only, according to Oracle.
Oracle is also planning to hold a webinar on Tuesday regarding road map plans for InnoDB, a popular MySQL storage engine.
While Oracle has pledged to improve MySQL since acquiring it through the purchase of Sun Microsystems, its recent move to raise the cost of an entry-level support subscription rankled some users.
Oracle defended its move, saying customers will receive far more than they did under Sun's low-end support offer.
MySQL customers who desire support have a growing number of alternative providers to tap, including Monty Program and the recently launched SkySQL.
Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris's e-mail address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com
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