NuSphere MySQL Advantage

by NuSphere

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B00005QXVU
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 27, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #43,877 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #34 in Software > Programming > Database > SQL
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

NuSphere MySQL Advantage is a suite of four open-source software packages--proven, popular, and well-supported ones--that work together to run interactive, dynamic Internet sites. Far from just a straight CD-ROM distribution of publicly available software, NuSphere has done a great job of automating the packages' installation processes (the suite installs under both Windows and Linux) so the four utilities interoperate smoothly. You can also install any or all of the suite's components manually, or compile from the included source code.

The "advantage" in this product's name refers to a subscription service that comes in addition to the CD-ROM. Every quarter for a year, NuSphere ships its registered users an update disk that contains the latest stable versions of the four packages, plus additional goodies of their choosing. You get technical support, too: Web and e-mail support for a year. A similar NuSphere product--NuSphere MySQL--consists of the same base CD-ROM, but without the update subscription and tech support.

The lesser product also lacks the enhancements that NuSphere has made to the generic MySQL distribution. Their improved product--it's called Enhanced MySQL--allows row-level locking and therefore greater transaction loads. The enhancements also make it easier to recover from crashes and to better protect your data from unwanted access. NuSphere's modifications to the core MySQL make it more suitable for big database jobs.

But is MySQL any good? Experience says it's excellent. The big boys of databases--Oracle, Sybase, Microsoft, and others--would like you to believe that only their big, expensive RDBMS products are good enough to handle your data. It's just not true. Most of the time, you'll find that MySQL--Enhanced MySQL, particularly--is entirely adequate for storing, retrieving, and reporting on your pieces of data. It supports standard Structured Query Language (SQL), and should be familiar to anyone who has done SQL work in any environment before. MySQL has been tested extensively, and has been found to stack up well against commercial database products, particularly with small- to mid-size data stores and moderate transaction loads. So, unless you have unusually tough requirements (such as an astronomical transaction load or a need for a feature that's available only in commercial RDBMSes), MySQL can do what you want reliably and speedily. It's a well-built RDBMS that does everything most applications require, enhanced by the programming languages and tools that have grown up around it. This kit includes version 3.23.41.

PHP is similar in function to Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP) and Sun's JavaServer Pages (JSP) scripting languages. PHP code is embedded in documents that are to be sent out by a Web server, and is interpreted before the page gets served. That means you can use PHP (version 4.0.6 is part of the NuSphere product) to do database lookups; the language has a set of commands specifically for connecting to MySQL databases. PHP can format the results of the lookups as HTML, which the Web server would then send to the requesting browser. You can set up HTML forms to be submitted to PHP scripts as well, which means you can use HTML, PHP, and MySQL together to create complete user interfaces for your databases.

If you prefer Perl to PHP or require its more extensive text-manipulation capabilities, this kit provides you with Perl 5.6.1. Like PHP, Perl has modules that make it easy to query MySQL databases and use the results in your applications. Perl, like PHP, can be used to generate Web pages based on query results.

What ties all this together is Apache, the popular, refined, and extensible open-source Web server. Apache (version 1.3.20 here) serves HTML pages, of course, but also makes Perl and PHP scripts available to users on the network. It's reliable and customizable.

There's documentation, too. Three commercially available books (all from O'Reilly & Associates, and with plenty of detail) ship as part of this package:

• Apache Pocket Reference
• Perl 5 Pocket Reference, Third Edition
• MySQL/PHP Database Applications

Partly because the four software packages in this kit are so great, and partly because NuSphere's installation routine solves so many configuration hassles, NuSphere MySQL Advantage is a great value. Don't hesitate to buy it if you need to bring up a Web server in a hurry, require some help with the process, and plan to maintain it over time. --David Wall

Amazon.com Product Description

NuSphere MySQL Advantage is comprised of Enhanced MySQL, Apache, PHP, and Perl, to create an integrated Web development environment. This technology suite delivers a complete, stable environment for building and deploying database-driven applications for the Internet. Available for Linux, Unix, and Windows, Advantage allows users to develop and deploy on their choice of platforms. This flexible, multiple-platform environment brings unity and scalability to development and Web applications.

Advantage users also stay on top of the latest technologies with regular updates. Every quarter receive a fresh Web development environment plus popular Web applications to boost productivity. Applications range from complete solutions like Bugzilla, a bug-tracking database, to add-on modules like an open-source search engine. Updates to the integrated NuSphere MySQL Advantage environment range from productivity tools like NuSphere's Access Manager for Apache, to the most recent stable releases of the open-source components--Apache, PHP, and Perl. The suite includes complete technical support for anything that may come up. Whether it's simple installation and configuration questions, or if you need Enhanced MySQL support, technical staff is available.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Web development platform and database, January 17, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: NuSphere MySQL Advantage (CD-ROM)

Lots of good stuff in this box. Good documentation. THe headliner is the NuSphere database: it is just like MySQL except it has real row-locking so it isn't SLO when multiple users are beating on it, and it has auto-crash recovery, so my beeper doesn't go off.

Install is sweet, and works remotely for headless installs. Full webserver middleware stack (Apache, nusphere MySQL, Perl and PHP) installs on Linux and windoze, even on virgen systems. If you've ever tried to get bugzilla up under windoze, you'll like this: it comes with a multi-platform bugzilla for free.

Some dba tools in the bundle, some apache stuff, but I haven't tried it. For me, its the database stupid.

Nice support but telephone is extra, you have to use email.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Hard to configure, August 22, 2003

By 

Carlos Guizar Tejeda (Mexico) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: NuSphere MySQL Advantage (CD-ROM)

I tried this software and couldn't create a simple database with out reading a lot and wasn't easy to configure.