With this release, replication is being sped up though multithreaded support. Multithreaded replication is "an absolutely killer feature," Schwartz said. When data is replicated on a backup server, the software can now spawn multiple threads on the backup server to copy the material in parallel.

In earlier versions, "you could completely overpower a replica with even a moderately powered master server. That's been a serious problem for a long time," Schwartz said.

Also on the replication front, the company has introduced time-delay replication, where the copying process can be delayed by a preset length of time, which can be handy in those cases where an administrator makes a severe mistake, such as inadvertently dropping a database table. Because the replication is not instantaneous, the administrator can fetch the replicated dropped table before it vanishes too.

Ulin said the company plans to release some more milestone beta releases before the final launch. Also, the company is releasing different preview versions of MySQL, each one implementing a potentially new feature. This approach can ease the job of testing the software before putting it into a production environment, Schwartz said. "If I wanted to test a specific feature, I can test that without worrying about the influence of other features," Schwartz said.

Overall, Schwartz is pleased by the work that Oracle is doing.