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Backing up your database is absolutely vital if the data is of any importance. This will save you in the event of an accidental deletion, either due to a slip of the finger or a major failure in your code.

If you're familiar with phpMyAdmin, then you may be able to export and import your database from there. But this approach doesn't work too well if you have a large database. For large databases, you're better off using the command line.

There is often a charged debate between MySQL proponents and those who are increasingly excited about NoSQL.

So, it's good to see a bit of levity enter the discussion. Every once in a while we need to sit back and not take ourselves too seriously. That seems to be the intention of this video that we found on High Scalability.

On Jan. 27 Oracle announced it had finalized its acquisition of Sun. In doing so it adds a number of open source darlings to its portfolio, MySQL, Java and VirtualBox to mention just a few.

Now that Oracle has acquired VirtualBox, what does this mean for the virtualization market?

Several days ago, we called MySQL's falling prey to Oracle one of the top 10 tech-related failures of 2009.

It seems we're in good company, as one of MySQL's founders, Monty Widenius, the man who spent the past 27 years creating and working on MySQL, is using his personal blog to incite a mass letter-writing campaign to the European Commission in order to ensure the open-source future of the popular database. We're not the only ones who questioned whether MySQL would "succumb to corporate lameness" after a takeover by a major closed-source competitor. In fact, Widenius speculates that Oracle could close or even kill all or parts of MySQL.

The U.S. Department of Justice may have approved the purchase of Sun Microsystems by Oracle, but the deal still could be delayed by yet another institution. The Brussels-based European Commission still has 48 hours to open an in-depth investigation, reports Reuters, and the DOJ's European counterparts are looking much more closely at Oracle owning MySQL.

Is a leading enterprise vendor buying out its open source competition a violation of antitrust laws? In its approval the U.S. authorities cited no concern about MySQL, and focused largely on Java licensing issues. Sun's shareholders voted to go ahead with the multi-billion dollar deal back in July, when it was still under scrutiny from the DOJ.

As of July 22nd, all MySQL.com Web services have become completely inaccessible. Just in time for OSCON, the failure leaves all six million or more users of the open source database system unable to access source code, bug tracking, or discussion forums on the site.

According to Duleepa "Dups" Wijayawardhana of Sun Microsystem's MySQL Community Team, the problem was the result of a massive power outage in Uppsala, Sweden, where the infrastructure is located.

Index Ventures today announced the closing of a €350 million early-stage fund, Index Ventures V. Early stage? Wow! And early stage + Europe = Double Wow! How does Index Ventures raise such big funds for early-stage ventures when most investors are still trying to figure out if Treasury Bonds are too risky? In short, it is because it has already invested in some of Europe's biggest successes, most notably Skype, MySQL, and Last.fm. When you get those kinds of exits ($4.1 billion for Skype, $1 billion for MySQL, and $280 million for Last.fm), investors want to give you more money to try again.

Sun Microsystems announced today that had entered into an agreement to acquire open source database company MySQL AB for $1 billion in cash and assumed stock options. MySQL is used by many of the web's largest companies, including YouTube, Facebook, and Wikipedia, and makes up the "M" in LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP), one of the most popular open source web development stacks utilized by web sites today.