Both of these features should help make MySQL Enterprise Edition a more viable database choice for Windows shops, potentially expanding its user base beyond enterprise Linux users, noted Oracle marketing executive Bertrand Matthelié, announcing the features.

Oracle designed the new MySQL Installer for Windows to simplify the process of installing MySQL and its associated tools. The new user interface guides the user through the installation process. It can install not only MySQL on a Windows computer but other associated programs as well, such as MySQL Workbench and MySQL Query Analyzer. The software also can automatically update all the MySQL products with bug fixes and upgrades as needed.

Failover clustering has also been added. This feature can be handy for those organization that require constant uptime, or high availability (HA), of their databases.

When run on Windows Server 2008 R2, MySQL Enterprise Edition can detect when a copy of MySQL stops operating, either because of hardware failure or due to some failure in the database software itself. The administrative console alerts the administrator to restart the database or server, while moving the workload over to another, duplicate, database.

Although MySQL has been capable of offering HA for awhile--through a special edition called MySQL Cluster--this version is easier to set up, .