- 13.6.1. InnoDB as the Default MySQL Storage Engine
- 13.6.2. Configuring
InnoDB - 13.6.3. Using Per-Table Tablespaces
- 13.6.4.
InnoDBStartup Options and System Variables - 13.6.5. Creating and Using
InnoDBTables - 13.6.6. Adding, Removing, or Resizing
InnoDBData and Log Files - 13.6.7. Backing Up and Recovering an
InnoDBDatabase - 13.6.8. Moving an
InnoDBDatabase to Another Machine - 13.6.9. The
InnoDBTransaction Model and Locking - 13.6.10.
InnoDBMulti-Versioning - 13.6.11.
InnoDBTable and Index Structures - 13.6.12.
InnoDBDisk I/O and File Space Management - 13.6.13.
InnoDBError Handling - 13.6.14.
InnoDBPerformance Tuning and Troubleshooting - 13.6.15. Limits on
InnoDBTables
InnoDB is a high-reliability and high-performance
storage engine for MySQL. Starting with MySQL 5.5, it is the default
MySQL storage engine. Key advantages of InnoDB include:
Its design follows the ACID model, with transactions featuring commit, rollback, and crash-recovery capabilities to protect user data.
Row-level locking and Oracle-style consistent reads increase multi-user concurrency and performance.
InnoDBtables arrange your data on disk to optimize common queries based on primary keys. EachInnoDBtable has a primary key index called the clustered index that organizes the data to minimize I/O for primary key lookups.To maintain data integrity,
InnoDBalso supportsFOREIGN KEYreferential-integrity constraints.You can freely mix
InnoDBtables with tables from other MySQL storage engines, even within the same statement. For example, you can use a join operation to combine data fromInnoDBandMEMORYtables in a single query.
To determine whether your server supports InnoDB
use the SHOW ENGINES statement. See
Section 12.4.5.17, “SHOW ENGINES Syntax”.
Table 13.4. InnoDB Storage Engine
Features
| Storage limits | 64TB | Transactions | Yes | Locking granularity | Row |
| MVCC | Yes | Geospatial data type support | Yes | Geospatial indexing support | No |
| B-tree indexes | Yes | Hash indexes | No | Full-text search indexes | No |
| Clustered indexes | Yes | Data caches | Yes | Index caches | Yes |
| Compressed data | Yes[a] | Encrypted data[b] | Yes | Cluster database support | No |
| Replication support[c] | Yes | Foreign key support | Yes | Backup / point-in-time recovery[d] | Yes |
| Query cache support | Yes | Update statistics for data dictionary | Yes | ||
[a] Compressed InnoDB tables require the InnoDB Barracuda file format. [b] Implemented in the server (via encryption functions), rather than in the storage engine. [c] Implemented in the server, rather than in the storage product [d] Implemented in the server, rather than in the storage product | |||||
InnoDB has been designed for maximum performance
when processing large data volumes. Its CPU efficiency is probably
not matched by any other disk-based relational database engine.
The InnoDB storage engine maintains its own
buffer pool for caching data and indexes in main memory.
InnoDB stores its tables and indexes in a
tablespace, which may consist of several files (or raw disk
partitions). This is different from, for example,
MyISAM tables where each table is stored using
separate files. InnoDB tables can be very large
even on operating systems where file size is limited to 2GB.
The Windows Essentials installer makes InnoDB the
MySQL default storage engine on Windows, if the server being
installed supports InnoDB.
InnoDB is published under the same GNU GPL
License Version 2 (of June 1991) as MySQL. For more information on
MySQL licensing, see http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/licensing/.
Additional Resources
A forum dedicated to the
InnoDBstorage engine is available at http://forums.mysql.com/list.php?22.The InnoDB storage engine in MySQL 5.5 releases includes a number performance improvements that in MySQL 5.1 were only available by installing the InnoDB Plugin. This latest InnoDB (now known as InnoDB 1.1) offers new features, improved performance and scalability, enhanced reliability and new capabilities for flexibility and ease of use. Among the top features are Fast Index Creation, table and index compression, file format management, new
INFORMATION_SCHEMAtables, capacity tuning, multiple background I/O threads, multiple buffer pools, and group commit.For information about these features, see Section 13.7, “New Features of InnoDB 1.1”.
The MySQL Enterprise Backup product lets you back up a running MySQL database, including
InnoDBandMyISAMtables, with minimal disruption to operations while producing a consistent snapshot of the database. When MySQL Enterprise Backup is copyingInnoDBtables, reads and writes to bothInnoDBandMyISAMtables can continue. During the copying ofMyISAMand other non-InnoDB tables, reads (but not writes) to those tables are permitted. In addition, MySQL Enterprise Backup can create compressed backup files, and back up subsets ofInnoDBtables. In conjunction with the MySQL binary log, you can perform point-in-time recovery. MySQL Enterprise Backup is included as part of the MySQL Enterprise subscription.For a more complete description of MySQL Enterprise Backup, see MySQL Enterprise Backup User's Guide (Version 3.5.2).