Announcing MariaDB Server 10.6.1 Beta

We are pleased to announce the second release of MariaDB Server 10.6.  MariaDB Server 10.6 is the next major version of our yearly MariaDB Server Release Series.

With this release, internal optimizations have covered all areas of the server, including a lot of refactoring in InnoDB. Commands of the Data Definition Language (DDL) are atomic operations with MariaDB Server 10.6, so any DDL statement is guaranteed to be either fully executed or completely discarded even if the server has crashed or was killed in the middle of an operation.

MariaDB Server 10.6 also got several new features and enhancements. Some of the new features available in MariaDB Server as of version 10.6.1 are:

• The JSON function JSON_TABLE, which is used to extract JSON data based on a JSON path expression and to return it as a relational table used in a FROM clause. Column names and types can be defined together with a PATH expression, and nested paths are supported.
• InnoDB can now execute SELECT [FOR UPDATE|LOCK IN SHARED MODE] … SKIP LOCKED where already-locked rows are ignored. A typical use case for such a query is displaying available items within booking applications.
• The SQL:2008 compliant Syntax
  OFFSET start { ROW | ROWS } FETCH { FIRST | NEXT } [ count ] { ROW | ROWS } { ONLY | WITH TIES } can be used instead of LIMIT count OFFSET start. It also provides the new WITH TIES option.
• In addition to an index hint to ignore an index for a query, you can now define to ignore the index on the DDL level for CREATE TABLE/INDEX or ALTER TABLE/INDEX. An index hint would be used to control the execution plan for a query. The new DDL level option can be used by DBAs to test the application behavior before the index is completely removed, which is a more expensive task.
• The Performance Schema includes information related to the replica worker threads, using the  replication_applier_status_by_worker table.
• A System Schema is now provided with MariaDB Server, which includes a set of views, functions and stored procedures to help DBAs analyze the Performance Schema.
• Host names in CREATE USER, GRANT, and replication CHANGE MASTER can now be up to 255 bytes long.
• New in Beta: A server variable binlog_expire_logs_seconds  has been added to allow defining the time in seconds until the automatic removal of binary logs. Before MariaDB Server 10.6.1 one could only specify expiration time in whole days with binlog_expire_logs_days.
• New in Beta: Character set utf8 has been renamed to utf8mb3 as preparation for making utf8mb4 the default in a later release series. For compatibility reasons, utf8 remains as an alias for utf8mb3 when old_mode=UTF8_IS_UTF8MB3 (which is the default).
• New in Beta: Compatibility enhancements for Oracle users:
  • Functions ADD_MONTHS(), TO_CHAR(), SYS_GUID() are now supported
  • MINUS is supported as an alias to EXCEPT (if sql_mode=oracle)
  • SYSDATE can be used without parentheses (if sql_mode=oracle)
  • ROWNUM() (and ROWNUM if sql_mode=oracle) is now supported
• MariaDB Cluster (Galera):
  • The primary node for replication can now be switched in MariaDB Cluster without the need to reconfigure the replication when using Global Transaction IDs
  • New configuration options for Galera can be set via wsrep_mode, like REPLICATE_ARIA, DISALLOW_LOCAL_GTID, REQUIRED_PRIMARY_KEY. These options can be used to disable or enable functionality in a MariaDB Cluster environment
  • New in Beta: The communication between nodes can now be changed from unencrypted to TLS without Cluster downtime
  • New in Beta: Galera will also log information about executed DDL to remote nodes, when wsrep_debug is set to SERVER and wsrep_OSU_method is set to ‘TOI’

We encourage you to download this release today. Please note that we do not recommend running beta releases in production.

Try MariaDB Community Server 10.6 Beta and share your feedback.