MariaDB has announced the release of DBMS MariaDB 11.8.2, the first stable release of branch 11.8 with a long term support of at least 5 years. Simultaneously, MariaDB 12.0.1 has been introduced as a candidate release.
The MariaDB project, derived from MySQL, emphasizes reverse compatibility and enhanced functionalities including additional storage options. The MariaDB Foundation oversees its development independently, ensuring an open and transparent process that is not influenced by individual manufacturers. MariaDB has replaced MySQL in various Linux distributions such as RHEL, SUSE, Fedora, and Debian, while also being utilized in major projects like Wikipedia, Google Cloud SQL, and Nimbuzz.
Notable enhancements in MariaDB 11.8 branch compared to the previous LTS version 11.4 include:
- The integration of MariaDB Vector project for vector search in machine learning systems. Features like vec_distance_euclidean(), vec_distance_cosine(), and vec_distance() for vector calculations are included. CPU extensions like AVX2, AVX512, ARM, and IBM Power10 are optimized for vector operations, surpassing performance benchmarks of competitors.
- Resolution of the 2038 problem with TimeStamp type boundary expanded to 2106.
- Default encoding set to Unicode (UTF8MB4) with full Emoji support, and updated UCA 14.0.0 for COLLATION properties affecting sorting rules.
- Introduction of the PARSEC Authentication Plugin using pbkdf2 for password hashing and ed25519 digital signature scheme for authentication.
- Enhanced authentication for local system access using Unix Socket.
- Improvements in mariadb-dump and mariadb-import.