Why Should You Consider the Migration?

There are many reasons for it, but in bottom line in open source you should look for the community. 

MySQL CE, MariaDB or Percona DB?

Well, everyone should make their own decisions. However, you should decide if you are looking for commercial support or community support. If you are looking for commercial support, choose the company that you most trust (and gives you the best deal).

If you are looking for community support take a look where community is, check if the forums are active and if bugs that are being reported by the community are being taken care of. Finally search on Linkedin. It's a great way to sense where the wind blows.

What Should You Expect?

Faster releases, better response to community, some performance boost and in the bottom line: no change is need from your client side.

How to Migrate?

Migration currently is very simple, just like upgrading to a new major MySQL release:

1. Backup:

   sudo service mysql stop
   sudo cp -R /var/lib/mysql /var/lib/mysql.old
   sudo cp -R /etc/mysql/my.cnf /etc/mysql/my.cnf.old

2. Uninstall MySQL

   dpkg --get-selections | grep -v deinstall | grep -i mysql
   sudo apt-get purge -y percona-toolkit
   sudo apt-get purge -y php5-mysql
   sudo apt-get purge -y libmysqlclient18 mysql-client  mysql-client-5.5 mysql-client-core-5.5 mysql-common mysql-server mysql-server-5.5 mysql-server-core-5.5

3. Install MariaDB

   sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
   sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 0xcbcb082a1bb943db
   sudo add-apt-repository 'deb http://sfo1.mirrors.digitalocean.com/mariadb/repo/10.0/ubuntu trusty main'
   sudo apt-get -y update
   sudo apt-get -y dist-upgrade
   sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client percona-toolkit

4. Select your root password
5. Upgrade

   sudo mysql_upgrade -uroot -p

Bottom Line

Migration is easier then you may expect, now you can test and verify if it fits your needs.

Keep Performing

Moshe Kaplan