MySQL is one of the standards which neither Data Warehousing nor IT would be the way it is now without. Its Data Warehouse solution, even though originates from an open source project, is considered one of the most interesting ones in the market and praised for its versatility.

MySQL is one of these standards which today's Business Intelligence and even other Internet Technologies would be totally different without. Everyone who has ever seen a database with its core, must have simultaneously heard about MySQL. It has taken only a while for MySQL to become the core of databases used at organizations, applications and websites as well. The fact that it's spread as an open source must have accelerated its popularization significantly. And what is important, MySQL met almost all the requirements well enough to declass any paid solutions.

In case of data warehousing, MySQL is thought to be following three goals. As for the very beginning, it's supposed to support all the most common cases which data warehousing use is indispensable in. Once it's supplied with all the major features, the attention has to be paid to placing the data warehouse in organizational IT environment. Thereupon, MySQL is oriented on partnering with the most appreciated vendors of Business Intelligence and Data Management solutions. Eventually, as the third goal total cost of maintenance reduction was chosen.

Data warehousing itself is a branch that evolves significantly over years. Thereupon, the today's data warehousing solutions need to support even the widest examples of warehousing issues. Traditional warehouses, even if still considered useful, in a lot of cases are just not enough. Newer ones seem better and more efficient. In case of MySQL Data Warehouse, besides the traditional data warehouses, there is a support for data marts, large historical (archive) data warehouses, and real time data warehouses. Especially those last ones are considered the future of data warehousing.

The features for data warehousing

MySQL, to compete with the largest players in the data warehousing market, needs to be supplied with a comprehensive set of features. The most meaningful ones are as follows:

• wide set of partitioning tools which include range, key, list, hash, and composite partitioning
• no tight storage limits
• fully automated storage management
• efficient ANSI-SQL support applicable to all data types (BLOB and XML as well)
• simply and intuitive in configuration built in replication
• main memory tables
• B-tree, full text, hash, GIS, and clustered indexes support
• data caches easy to configure
• parallel data loading capabilities which reduce the time needed for each operation
• efficient data compression which allows to save quite a lot of disk space
• read-only tables which can be used for protecting the most sensitive data
• encryption options
• wide platform support.

However, the ones listed above are only major features. They are not the only, nonetheless they are responsible for the lion's share of MySQL Data Warehouse solution's popularity. What's important to remember after all is the fact that this one originates from an open source project, therefore it's competition with paid solutions isn't obvious.

MySQL Data Warehouse resources

http://www.mysql.it/why-mysql/white-papers/mysql_wp_for_data_warehousing.pdf - it's called a white paper, but looks much more like a book. Regardless of how to name it, this is a very good source of diverse information about MySQL Data Warehousing. It begins with quite a comprehensive introduction which is sufficient for beginners. Then, the readers are taken deeper into details of MySQL technology and data warehousing strategy as a whole. However, this is a part for more advanced users.

http://www.meansandends.com/mysql-data-warehouse/ - despite its medieval appearance, this is quite an interesting source of diverse information about MySQL Data Warehouse. There are some sections included and each of them includes a few practical information and hyperlinks to other - more or less interesting - sources of knowledge.

http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/opensource-analytics/mysql-as-a-data-warehousing-platform-8528 - here is quite an interesting article devoted to considering MySQL a data warehousing platform. It's chosen because it's provided as open source project, nonetheless the article itself provides differentiated information from practical POV. However, this article is just a part of a longer story which also is definitely worth spending a while to read.