Back from MySQL Performance Tuning Course in Washington, DC

About an hour ago, I got back from Washington, DC after spending four days attending a very productive MySQL performance tuning training session. I really enjoyed conversations with old and new friends including:

• Tobias Asplund, Instructor
  
• Ronald Bradford, Senior Consultant MySQL Inc.
• Michael "Mike" Amedeo Alaimo, IT Manager, Distributive Networks
  
• Stephen Spitzer, Learning Resource Center, USUHS
• Nyk Cowham, Systems Architect, Forum One Communications
• Joe Mansour, Web App. Programmer, and Donnie Lynn, DBA, Computing Center, University of Louisiana Monroe

I couldn't get cards of other friends I made there. If you were there I would love to hear again from you.

I enjoyed the class very much. We had many engaging discussions and tips were flying everywhere.

Tobias was very generous in answering questions, eager to jump to the whiteboard to take an in depth dive. Well done, my friend.

Towards the end of the session I was feeling strongly that this course actually should be a two part course. What we did in the first 1.5 days should be part of a different course or that material be given to students a few days so it can be reviewed by them. That way, we can intensify discussions even more from the very start of the course.

While talking with my friends there I also felt that there should be an addition to the course consisting of real-life problems and solutions as experienced by the companies using MySQL. I would be willing to contribute generic form of problems and gotchas I have encountered related to MySQL performance tuning on Linux and Solaris.

After having attending the performance training tutorial session by Tobias Asplund and Peter Zaitsev at MySQL Conference 2006, I was very excited before going to this session and I am glad that it was a very good decision. I will highly recommend this session for anyone who is interested in MySQL performance tuning. Professionals of all skill levels will get something out of this.

A big thanks once again to Warren and Ronald.