MySQL is the most popular relational database management system or short RDBMS in the world. It is a server which allows multi-user access to various databases. Its name is a combination of the name of the developer’s daughter “My” and the acronym SQL which stands for Structured Query Language. The system is owned and sponsored by a Swedish non-profit company called MySQL AB that is now part of the Oracle Corporation.
MySQL is frequently used by free-software open-source projects which need a comprehensive database management system. A few examples of applications that use MySQL are TYPO3, Joomla, WordPress, phpBB, and Drupal. However, MySQL is also in use for several big and well-known web products such as Wikipedia, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube. It is also part of the LAMP open-source web application software stack, LAMP being an abbreviation for Linux Apache MySQL Perl/PHP/Python. It is also used on cloud computing platforms such as Amazon’s EC 2. My SQL is an open-source program whose source code is available for free to private users under GNU General Public License. Commercial users can choose from different paid editions that have more functional features.
MySQL is written in the programming languages C and C++ and is compatible with several commonly used operating systems including Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Symbian, SunOS and SCO OpenServer. The program is usually installed manually from source code, but since this can be rather inconvenient, it is more often installed from a binary package, although this means that further configuration may be necessary when it comes to security and optimization settings. Because MySQL does not come with GUI tools to manage databases, users can use the included command line tools or the official free MySQL Workbench. Workbench makes visual and graphical design and management of MySQL databases possible for users. There are also so-called front ends available, either as property of a third party or for free. Front ends are graphical administration applications and are needed to work with the structure of databases and the visual aspect of data. Several such front ends that will comply with MySQL are available.
Fact is that every website, online shop, etc. needs a so-called database. Strictly speaking the size of the respective database depends on the website itself.