MariaDB enterprise server helps you sleep at night

MariaDB Corporation announced the release of MariaDB Enterprise Server 10.4, code-named “Restful Nights” for the peace of mind it brings enterprise customers. Databases are the backbone of critical business services used every day. A database failure can result in sleepless nights for everyone involved. The new MariaDB Enterprise Server includes added functionality for enterprises running MariaDB at scale in production environments, involves new levels of testing and is shipped in a configuration that is secure by default. It delivers the highest standards of security, performance, availability, and scalability – turning sleeplessness into restful nights.

“The new version of MariaDB Server is a hardened database that transforms open source into enterprise open source,” said Max Mether, VP of Server Product Management, MariaDB Corporation. “We worked closely with our customers to add the features and quality they need to run in the most demanding production environments out-of-the-box. With MariaDB Enterprise Server, we’re focused on top-notch quality, comprehensive security, fast bug fixes and features that let our customers run at internet-scale performance without downtime.”“MariaDB has maintained a solid place in the database landscape during the past few years,” said James Curtis, Senior Analyst, Data Platforms and Analytics, 451 Research. “The company is taking steps to build on this foundation and expand its market presence with the introduction of MariaDB Enterprise Server, an open source, enterprise-grade offering targeted at enterprise clients anxious to stand up production-grade MariaDB environments.”

Count Sheep, Not Downtime

MariaDB Enterprise Server undergoes a rigorous process to ensure it’s up to enterprise production standards. With MariaDB Enterprise Server, customers get production-level quality not available in the community edition.

• Greater Reliability and Stability: Due to an extensive QA process, MariaDB Enterprise Server delivers the level of reliability and stability required in production environments. Bugs are fixed first in Enterprise Server to maintain reliability, and key enterprise features are backported for those running earlier versions of MariaDB Server, providing long-term support.
   
• Higher Security Requirements: Unsecured databases are far too often the reason for data breaches. MariaDB Enterprise Server is configured out-of-the-box with the highest security settings to support mission-critical enterprise applications.
   
• Reduce Risk of Self-harm: Experimental and in-development plugins that make MariaDB versatile for any number of use cases are not fit for production workloads. MariaDB Enterprise Server disables any non-GA plugin until the feature meets production standards.

Enterprise Features for Light Sleepers

Enterprise customers typically run MariaDB in large-scale, demanding production environments. These environments have requirements that necessitate enhanced features and tools to help enterprises operate smoothly day and night, across all their customers. MariaDB Enterprise Server 10.4 adds several high-end features including:

• Enterprise Backup: Brings operational efficiency to customers with large databases by breaking up backups into non-blocking stages so writes and schema changes can occur during backups, rather than waiting until a backup completes. 
   
• Enterprise Audit: Adds more secure, stronger and easier auditing capabilities by logging all changes to the audit configuration and logging more detailed connection information, giving customers a comprehensive 360-degree view of changes to the database. 
   
• Enterprise Cluster: Complete end-to-end encryption for multi-master clusters lets customers rest easy knowing even the transaction buffers are encrypted ensuring all data anywhere in the database is fully secured.

“Restful Nights” Jolts MariaDB Into the Lead

With MariaDB Enterprise Server 10.4, MariaDB extends its open source lead as the first open source database to support bi-temporal tables and broad instant schema changes, putting PostgreSQL and Oracle MySQL to bed.

• Bi-temporal Support: Supports both system-versioned tables and application-time period tables, which gives developers the ability to address a wider range of use cases by building applications using temporal data and standard SQL. This capability was previously only supported by Oracle Database and IBM Db2.
   
• Instant Schema Changes: Lets enterprise customers with large tables iterate faster than ever by allowing changes on demand. MariaDB Enterprise Server 10.4 is the only open source database with the ability to instantly reorder columns, drop a column, add a column in any position, increase the size of a column and change the character set/collation.

Resting on a Cloud

MariaDB Enterprise Server 10.4 is equally at home on-prem, in the cloud or in a hybrid environment. It forms the building blocks to MariaDB SkySQL, the company’s upcoming database-as-a-service (DBaaS) offering, powered by Kubernetes to unleash the power of the hybrid cloud.