MySQL Consultative Support

MySQL Consultative Support service is included in Premier Support.

Consultative Support1 is a proactive approach that is designed to help you avoid critical outages. MySQL Support Engineers advise you on how to properly setup and tune your MySQL servers, schema, queries, and replication set-up to maximize performance and availability. Also, by taking the initiative to properly design and tune your MySQL database applications you can avoid having to purchase expensive hardware for your IT infrastructure.

Remote Troubleshooting

At times, it's more expedient for a MySQL Support Engineer to connect to your server to view results while you execute commands. Engineers can instruct you to:

  • Perform Installations and Upgrades
  • Analyze and Alter Server Configuration
  • Diagnose Performance or Stability Concerns
  • Gather System and Server Statistics and Information

Replication Review

Whether you use replication as part of a scale-out strategy or for providing redundancy for your database servers or simply for making backups, MySQL Support Engineers can review your proposed replication architecture or existing implementation and configuration and make recommendations to ensure performance and robustness, such as:

  • Potential flaws in your configuration or architecture
  • Possible performance enhancements for different use cases
  • Strategies to make better use of your replication implementation
  • Alternative implementations

Partitioning Review

Whether you are using partitioning to enhance query performance, distribute I/O across storage devices, facilitate backups or simplify the maintenance of historical data, MySQL Support Engineers can review your existing or proposed implementation and recommend:

  • Alternative partitioning functions and techniques
  • Strategies for making better use of partition pruning
  • Techniques for partition maintenance relevant to your environment
  • Different types of partition and subpartition organization

Schema Review

If you need to verify some of your table designs or indexing strategies, MySQL Support Engineers can review portions of your schema and recommend:

  • Candidates for Improved Normalization
  • Candidates for Improved Denormalization
  • Optimal Indexing Strategy
  • Optimal Column Types
  • Optimal Storage Engine

Query Review

If you have a problem query that consumes too many resources or does not have the performance that you need, MySQL Support Engineers can review your query and recommend:

  • Improvements to Query Structure and Form
  • Indexing Improvements
  • Alternative Queries
  • Options to Make Better Use of MySQL Internals
  • Options to Make Better Use of MySQL-Specific Features

Performance Tuning

If you would like expert advice on platform selection and server configuration targeting your unique usage patterns, MySQL Support Engineers can review your server configuration and system information and recommend:

  • Opportunities to Improve Performance
  • Server and OS Configuration Changes
  • Platform/Hardware Selection for Optimal Performance

Customer Code Review: Client APIs

If your application uses one of the MySQL Connectors (e.g. Connector/ODBC, Connector/JDBC), or one of the client APIs (e.g. C API, PHP, Python "MySQLdb" or Perl DBI), MySQL Support Engineers can review your usage of the MySQL APIs and recommend:

  • Best Practices
  • Code Correctness
  • Solutions to Common Problems
  • Alternative Implementations
  • Enhanced Connection Robustness

Customer Code Review: User Defined Functions

MySQL Enterprise Database allows you to create your own C++ user-defined functions. MySQL Support Engineers can review your UDF and recommend:

  • Best Practices
  • Code Correctness
  • Solutions to Common Problems
  • Alternative Implementations

Customer Code Review: Server Extensions

You can extend the MySQL Enterprise Database in a variety of ways, including custom storage engines, custom full-text parsers or direct modifications of server behavior itself. MySQL Support Engineers will work with you to review your extensions and recommend:

  • Best Practices
  • Code Correctness
  • Solutions to Common Problems
  • Alternative Implementations

Customer Code Review: Stored Routines (Triggers, Procedures, Functions)

If you place your complex business logic in MySQL Enterprise Database stored routines (e.g. stored procedures, triggers or stored functions), you may benefit from a review by the MySQL Support Engineers who can recommend:

  • Best Practices
  • Code Correctness
  • Solutions to Common Problems
  • Alternative Implementations

Install Support

Sometimes you want a MySQL expert to help guide you through the installation of MySQL Server, Enterprise Monitor, Query Analyzer and other MySQL software. MySQL Support Engineers can:

  • Recommend Specific binaries for your platform
  • Walk you through the installation procedures on the phone

1 Note: Consultative Support is limited to assistance with specific topics and issues. Application design, architectural design, system planning, migration planning and execution, training, and other activities that require deep analysis and audit of customer systems are not part of Consultative Support. These activities require separate consulting engagements.