On April 22-23rd, 2025, the Oracle Conference Center in Redwood Shores, California, buzzed with excitement as the MySQL and HeatWave Summit 2025 kicked off. The MySQL and HeatWave Summit is the largest gathering of MySQL users, developers and product experts in the world. The summit brought together developers, DBAs, experts, and users for this two day event packed with learning, networking, and celebration of MySQL’s latest advancements. This complimentary, in-person event featured 2 full days of rich technical content, 40 sessions, 28 speakers, and attendees representing the 6 continents.
The MySQL community were a critical part of the Summit. Sessions from community experts like Uber, Yelp, Readyset, PingCAP, ProxySQL and PlanetScale were very well attended. We closed out Day 1 with a lively MySQL 30th Anniversary celebration reception — complete with a cake-cutting to honor three decades of innovation and community growth.
This year’s summit also featured a walk-in hands-on labs zone, where attendees could get direct, practical exposure to MySQL observability and monitoring tools. The sessions focused on using OpenTelemetry, Oracle Cloud Observability and Management, and Oracle Enterprise Manager to monitor MySQL workloads more effectively.
The Dolphin Pod showcased interesting product demos and technical discussions. We also had 4 partner pods with their product offerings.
We were proud to see such incredible energy from developers, DBAs, architects, customers, and partners who came together to learn, share, and build the future of MySQL.
Keynote highlights: Reflecting on 30 Years and Looking Ahead
We began the keynote section with a thoughtful welcome from Mughees Minhas SVP of Products for MySQL and Observability at Oracle, who reflected on 30 years of MySQL a journey that has shaped how the world builds and scales data-driven applications. His opening remarks were followed by a timeline video tribute that celebrated MySQL’s evolution, innovation milestones, and vibrant global community.
The keynote address, “State of the Dolphin”, was delivered by Wim Coekaerts, Oracle’s EVP of Software Development. Wim spotlighted key advancements in MySQL since our last summit, framed across four major pillars:
Developer Productivity
JavaScript enhancements through the MySQL Multilingual Engine (MLE)
MySQL Operator for Kubernetes with support for backup, point-in-time recovery (PITR), and disaster recovery across clusters
Introduction of the MySQL REST Service, including a live demo integrating REST with GenAI-powered HeatWave MySQL
Performance & Availability
The Hypergraph Optimizer for improved query execution
Smarter, intelligent failovers and enhanced replication manageability
Auto Indexing, atomic I/O, and the ability to disable the Double Write Buffer
Continued enhancements to HeatWave Lakehouse for unified OLTP and OLAP workloads
Observability & Management
Native OpenTelemetry support for tracing and metrics
Flexibility to monitor MySQL using Oracle Cloud Observability services or Oracle Enterprise Manager
GenAI Integration in HeatWave
Advancements in generative AI capabilities within HeatWave, allowing developers to leverage real-time data and RESTful services for smart, contextual applications
Deep Dive sessions and expert Insights:
After the keynote, attendees had the opportunity to engage in a series of in-depth sessions led by Industry leaders, MySQL Community experts, and MySQL developers.
Nipun Agarwal, SVP of MySQL & HeatWave Development provided insights into the latest advancements in MySQL and HeatWave, including generative AI, machine learning, vector processing, lakehouse, transaction processing, and multi-cloud capabilities emphasizing on Oracle’s commitment to empowering businesses with cutting-edge database solutions while enriching the community edition and MySQL Enterprise Edition also with new capabilities.
Daniel Nichter – A best selling author of ‘Efficient MySQL Performance’, MySQL Community Award winner, conference speaker, and wide-ranging open source contributor and all in all a MySQL Rockstar!! Daniel provided practical insights into cloud performance and query response related improvements with his ‘MySQL Performance for Application Developers‘ session.
Frederic Descamps and Norvald Ryeng showcased to a full house the use of effective Indexes, Histograms and advancements in Query optimizer for MySQL. Fred showed how to improve the Database workload management and the best practices regarding InnoDB Backup and Data Recovery.
Luís Soares highlighed InnoDB Cluster, InnoDB ClusterSet and Group Replication innovations along with Backup and Disaster recovery strategies and other High Availability features for MySQL and HeatWave MySQL as part of his ‘Effortless Business Continuity‘ sessions.
Scott Stroz, MySQL Developer Advocate, delivered two insightful sessions. In “MySQL Architectures for the Newly Initiated,” he simplified core architecture concepts like read replicas, clustering, and replication, helping developers and new DBAs understand when and how to scale MySQL effectively. In “Hidden Gems in MySQL Shell,” Scott showcased lesser-known but cooler features from creating sandbox instances to managing replication and cloud-based data dumps proving just how versatile the MySQL Shell really is.
We would also like to extend our heartfelt thanks to all the other outstanding speakers who shared their expertise and enriched the summit with their insights. Notable contributors included Marcelo Altman (Readyset), Ronald Bradford (Kanangra I/O), René Cannaò (ProxySQL), Daniël Van Eeden (PingCAP), Raja Sriram Ganesan (Uber), Alexander Martinez (Yelp), Krishna Mamillapalli (Datavail), Deepthi Sigireddi (PlanetScale), and Giovanni Morelli (Mazzing Inc.). Their talks spanned a range of important topics — from performance tuning and scalability to operational best practices — and helped make this event a true success.
Community, Customer, and Partner Showcases
Partners played a pivotal role at the summit, demonstrating their expertise in deploying MySQL and HeatWave for diverse use cases. The event provided a platform for partners to share insights, showcase solutions, and engage with the MySQL community.
The event provided a platform for partners to demonstrate how they leverage MySQL technologies to address real-world challenges. For instance, Viscosity, a key partner, presented a captivating session on ‘building GenAI powered MySQL On-Premise Database Applications‘.
ReadySet showcased the power of query caching with the use of MySQL Query Cache and ReadySet caching data layer. The presentation showed real world examples of page load time improvements with their solution.
DataVail presented on lessons learnt with switching of MySQL Enterprise Monitor (MEM) to Oracle Enterprise Manager for MySQL (OEM).
Partners also engaged attendees through interactive booths and networking opportunities, fostering discussions on cloud migrations, performance tuning, and machine learning integrations. Their contributions underscored the collaborative ecosystem that drives MySQL’s success, offering scalable and high-availability solutions for diverse industries, from e-commerce to telecommunications.
Uber presented how they handle primary cluster promotions during failovers. Attendees could learn on how they could build and scale their complex infrastructure like Uber.
Yelp gave an insightful session on their journey upgrading MySQL to version 8.0. Presentation included the best practices that were followed and some of the challenges they hit along the way — including a few surprises caused by third party software.
PingCAP did a technical walkthrough of the go-mysql library, covering the topics related replication streams and sharing important insights into the MySQL wire protocol — A very practical code based presentation indeed!
The Dolphin Pod: Heart of the Community
The Dolphin Pod hosted by MySQL community leaders from Oracle became a true hub for learning and interaction. It served as a place for open conversation, Q&A, community exchange, and spontaneous demos. Whether it was first-time MySQL users or long-time contributors, the energy here was authentic and collaborative.
Summary:
As the world’s most popular open source database, MySQL continues to deliver innovations in availability, performance, operability, and developer productivity for all your business needs.
Huge shout out to the speakers, partners, community developers and attendees who made the MySQL and HeatWave Summit 2025 a huge success. Your passion for MySQL and dedication to pushing the boundaries of database technology made this event truly special. Stay tuned for updates on next year’s summit, and keep exploring the latest MySQL innovations!
For those who couldn’t attend in person, all sessions, including the keynote will be available on mysql.com soon.
And as always, thank you for using MySQL!