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Everything you love about MySQL can be found in MariaDB, plus some cutting edge 
features that are exclusive to it. Some of the improvements in MariaDB include the 
fact that we'll receive faster security patches (since developers don't need to wait for 
approval from Oracle before releasing updates), as well as better performance. But, 
even better is the fact that MariaDB features additional clustering options that are 
leaps and bounds better and more efficient than plain old MySQL.
So, hopefully I've sold you on the value of MariaDB. Ultimately, whether or not 
you actually use it will depend on the needs of your organization. I've seen some 
organizations opt to stick with MySQL, if only for the sole reason that it's what they 
know. I can understand that if a solution has proven itself in your data center, there's 
really no reason to change if your database stack is working perfectly fine the way 
it is. To that end, while I'll be going over utilizing MariaDB, it's possible that the 
examples may work for MySQL as well. If in doubt, MariaDB is recommended for 
the examples in this chapter.
With regard to your server, a good implementation plan is key (as always). I won't 
spend too much time on this aspect, since by now I know you've probably been 
through a paragraph or two in this book where I've mentioned the importance of 
redundancy (and I'm sure I'll mention redundancy again a few more times before 
the last page). At this point, you're probably just setting up a lab environment or 
test server on which to practice these concepts before using your newfound skills in 
production. But when you do eventually roll out a database server into production, 
it's crucial to plan for long-term stability. Database servers should be regularly 
backed up, redundant (there I go again), and regularly patched. Later on in this 
chapter, I'll walk you through setting up a secondary database server, which will 
take care of the redundancy part. However, that's not enough on its own, as regular 
backups are important. There are many utilities that allow you to do this, such as 
mysqldump
, and also take snapshots of your virtual machine (assuming you're not 
using a physical server). Both solutions are valid, depending on your environment. 
As someone who has lost an entire workday attempting to resurrect a fallen database 
server for a client (of which they had no backups or redundancy), my goal is simply 
to spare you that headache.
As far as how much resources a database server needs, that solely depends on your 
environment. MariaDB itself does not take up a huge amount of resources, but as 
with MySQL, your usage is dependent on your workload. Either you'll have a few 
dozen clients connecting, or a few thousand, or more. But one recommendation I'll 
definitely make is to use