What Causes Downtime in MySQL?

We’ve just published a new white paper analyzing the causes of emergency incidents filed by our customers. The numbers contradict the urban myth that bad SQL is the most common problem in databases. There are a number of surprises in other areas, too, such as the causes of data loss. This is the companion to my earlier white paper suggesting ways to prevent emergencies in MySQL. It is a re-published and re-edited version of an article that just appeared in IOUG’s SELECT magazine. You can download it for free from the MySQL white papers page on the Percona web site.