Brian Aker, MySQL's director of architecture, has unveiled Drizzle, a project to create a trimmed-down, faster version of the database system aimed at Web-based applications and cloud components.
Drizzle will have a micro-kernel architecture, with code being removed from the Drizzle core and moved through interfaces into modules. Aker has already selected particular functionality for removal: modes, views, triggers, prepared statements, stored procedures, query cache, data-conversion inserts, access control lists and some data types.
"The goal right now is to target a certain class of applications/developers and see if this is useful," Aker wrote in a blog post. For example, the project will target Web-based applications, cloud components, databases without business logic (stored procedures) and multi-core architectures, Aker wrote.
According to the Drizzle FAQ, the database will be licensed under the GPLv2 and be available on Linux and OS X platforms. Aker stated that he is unwilling to support platforms without a proper GNU toolchain, such as Windows.
"In addition Drizzle will include the latest InnoDB code; you don't have to wait for MySQL 6.0 or go to the trouble of annually downloading and installing the InnoDB plugin from Oracle just to get access to the latest and fastest InnoDB version", Michael Widenius, MySQL's AB co-founder and original author of MySQL, said in a blog post.
Widenius said that Drizzle was made possible by Sun's acquisition of MySQL and the project had the blessing of Sun's upper management.
No official release schedule has yet been set for Drizzle, but instructions for developers to check out the latest code are available from the Drizzle Wiki.
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