Announcements
Announcements from the Mingle Team
Announcement
Thank you for trusting ThoughtWorks Studios to provide you with the products, services and enterprise-level of support for Mingle and MySQL technologies. We take this responsibility very seriously!
From time-to-time, we must decide that the continued support and enhancement of a particular product is not in the best business interest of the Company. When this occurs, we will begin an end of life (EOL) process for this product. The goal of ThoughtWorks Studios' EOL process is to provide our valued customers with ample lead time concerning this decision so that each customer may transition from its use of the EOL product to an acceptable alternative.
For more information on the ThoughtWorks Studios Lifecycle Policy Click here
Mingle 3.0 - Support Ending for MySQL Database Server
Beginning with Mingle 3.0, using MySQL as your Mingle database will no longer be supported. All existing MySQL users will need to migrate their data to either Postgres (Version 8.3) or Oracle 10g before upgrading to Mingle 3.0.
In order to facilitate a smooth upgrade to Mingle 3.0 for all MySQL users, we recommend that you upgrade to Mingle 2.3.1 and migrate your data to either Postgres or Oracle before the Mingle 3.0 release is available. Mingle 3.0 will be available in early December and we hope by then all MySQL users will be migrated to Postgres or Oracle so they can upgrade easily to Mingle 3.0.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Supported Databases
PostgreSQL
Mingle works with PostgreSQL 8.3
You can download PostgreSQL Version 8.3 from here
Note: Currently we are testing Mingle with PostgreSQL version 8.4 and support is expected to be extended by beginning of 2010.
Data Migration tool
You can download the Data migration tool from here
The PostgreSQL Mingle database migration script is a tool to migrate a Mingle MySQL 2.3 or 2.3.1 database to Mingle PostgreSQL 2.3 or 2.3.1 database.
Please follow the instructions mentioned in the README file to migrate from MySQL to PostgreSQL.
Oracle
Mingle works with Oracle 10g
You can download Oracle10g from here
Data Migration tool
The tool is a bulk export and import tool which was shipped with Mingle 2.3 and 2.3.1. This tool can be found in <MINGLE_HOME>/tools directory where <MINGLE HOME> is the directory where Mingle 2.3 or Mingle 2.3.1 is installed.
To use this tool please follow the instructions in the <MINGLE_HOME>/tools/export_import/readme.txt.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FAQs:
1. Why is MySQL no longer supported?
Mingle launched with MySQL, and therefore ThoughtWorks Studios has had a long history with it. Over time, we have had a few critical issues associated with MySQL; issues that have required significant bandwidth from our team to resolve. Based on the publicly available roadmap for MySQL, we determined that the fixes we desire will not be addressed in time to accommodate our product development schedule. Therefore, we decided to move away from MySQL. We realize this will be a difficult transition for some customers, but in the interest of product quality we feel that this is the wisest choice.
2. How do I choose between PostgreSQL and Oracle?
Broadly, we'd suggest PostgreSQL unless Oracle is already in use in your environment and you have a dedicated DBA
Here are some criteria to consider
PostgreSQL:
* Installation is quick and configuration is relatively easy
* Ongoing administration is relatively straightforward
* PostgreSQL is a free, open source database, distributed under a BSD-style license.
Oracle:
* Requires a degree of performance tuning for optimal Mingle performance
* Installation can be time consuming
* Higher system resource requirements than PostgreSQL
* Well supported by third-party enterprise monitoring and backup tools.
3. How do I migrate from MySQL to PostgreSQL?
The MySQL to PostgreSQL migration tool is available here
4. How do I migrate from MySQL to Oracle?
The tool is a bulk export and import tool which was shipped with Mingle 2.3 and 2.3.1. This tool can be found in <MINGLE_HOME>/tools directory where <MINGLE HOME> is the directory where Mingle 2.3 or Mingle 2.3.1 is installed.
To use this tool please follow the instructions in the <MINGLE_HOME>/tools/export_import/readme.txt.
5. From where can I download PostgreSQL?
Mingle supports PostgreSQL 8.3
You can download it from here
6. From where can I download Oracle?
You can download Oracle10g from here
7. Where can I find the instructions to install PostgreSQL?
PostgreSQL 8.3 documentation
8. Where can I find the instructions to install Oracle?
Oracle 10g documentation
Comments
We use MySQL extensively and have never had any issues with it. We have also used Postgres and did not find it to be a significant improvement. Given the mature state of Rails db libraries, most of the differences between the databases are abstracted away. In short, if MySQL is really giving Thoughtworks problems, then the Mingle developers are doing something fundamentally wrong. I challenge them to explain exactly what problems they are running into.
We have a large investment in MySQL (setup scripts, backup scripts, machine configs, etc.) and do not want to set up a new db if we can avoid it. For this reason we may not upgrade to Mingle 3.0 and will definitely start looking for a tool that supports MySQL. I bet I am not alone in this.
MySQL is *the* database for many open source projects, and not supporting it seems downright silly. I have to question what Thoughtworks' motivation is for such a disastrous decision.
Reply to this Comment
Be the first to rate this
|
Sign in to rate this
We did not take the decision to drop MySQL support lightly. The decision will cause some short term pain, but once you've switched over to Postgres you should find your Mingle experience to be more pleasant.
Many Mingle features such as Property Rename, Bulk Update, and Excel Import require bulk database operations, including bulk UPDATE, bulk INSERT, and temp table usage. MySQL's locking scheme is simply not up to the task when it comes to these bulk operations. The result is long lock waits and timeouts. We had a discussion with MySQL developers and learned that the locking issues would not be addressed in the near future. At that point we were left with the difficult decision to phase out MySQL.
(FWIW, bulk operations are not abstracted in Rails (or any other) database adapter. And if they were included in a db interface, that would be no guarantee that the operations 'just worked' against all databases.)
Postgres and Oracle are both top-flight databases that we feel good about supporting. Postgres is free, open-source, and has tremendous respect within the community. For those looking for a Postgres+Support, EnterpriseDB has a great offering which we ourselves use.
We have built migration tools that we hope will make your migration as smooth as possible. Also, our support team is happy to help with any questions along the way, including Postgres configuration and maintenance suggestions. Moving forward, we look forward to being able to deliver features at a faster pace, due to our supporting databases that are more in line with Mingle's features.
Reply to this Comment
Be the first to rate this
|
Sign in to rate this
David, thanks for the response.
I found recipes posted in the past month for setting up postgres on ec2 w/ xfs/ebs and snapshotting, which is what I didn't want to waste time on (whereas the corresponding mysql recipes have been around for a much longer time). I still wish that Amazon had an RDB for postgres, not just mysql.
I remember 12-18 months ago, postgres was still quite buggy on ActiveRecord compared to mysql (issues such as postgres's pedantic behavior regarding precendence of LIMIT, legal fields to aggregate over when grouping, how it sorts nils compared to mysql..) Dunno how it is now, as I've been perfectly happy w/ mysql and datamapper.
Reply to this Comment
Be the first to rate this
|
Sign in to rate this
FWIW, Mingle has supported Postgres from the very first release in 2007. We've not encountered any serious AR / Postgres issues along the way. In fact, it's been our favorite database from the start. The only issues we've encountered were around getting vacuum scripts correctly configured -- nothing around application functionality.
Reply to this Comment
Be the first to rate this
|
Sign in to rate this