An article by CIO.com outlines the expected improvements with the next release of MySQL, version 5.1. Sun Claims Big Leap with MySQL Upgrade Next Week says that Sun Microsystems, which bought MySQL AB, will use its upcoming MySQL conference to release 5.1.

MySQL 5.1 promises some major features. Among the advances are partitioning, events scheduling, row-based replication, and disk-based clustering. According to the article, these are features found in commercial offerings like DB2 and Oracle.

Another improvement is Maria, a transactional engine for MySQL.