Santa Clara, California - (Website Hosting Directory) - April 30, 2008 - Web hosting provider and software development company, Sun Microsystems, has debuted its new visual database design tool, MySQL Workbench.

The solution is designed to integrate data modeling, physical database design, database creation, change management and documentation capabilities into a single, seamless environment for MySQL developers and DBAs.

Michael G. Zinner, team lead for Sun’s database developer tools noted, ”We are very happy to deliver a powerful open source database design tool for the MySQL ecosystem. The two editions are designed to meet the needs of the do-it-yourself community developer, while providing a very affordable and compelling commercial product for the corporate database professional.”

MySQL Workbench is available for download in two versions: an open source Community Edition and a (US) $99 commercial Standard Edition. Both are available now for Microsoft Windows, with future cross-platform support for Linux and Macintosh OS X under development.

The announcement was made at the sixth annual MySQL Conference and Expo. With nearly 2,000 attendees, it is the world’s largest community event for open source database developers, users, DBAs, vendors and corporate IT managers.

The MySQL Workbench Community Edition is freely available for download under the open source GPL license at dev.mysql.com/workbench. This full-featured tool provides a base framework for data modeling and physical database design.

The MySQL Workbench Standard Edition is a commercial extension to the community edition that adds specialized plug-in modules that can boost productivity and save time. These include reverse- and forward-engineering capabilities, synchronization to and from live databases, HTML and text-based documentation, built-in validation of models and security management for modeled objects. At the MySQL Online Shop (shop.mysql.com), users can purchase a (US) $99 subscription for a perpetual single-seat license and software updates for a full year. Volume license discounts for multiple seats are also available for purchase.

As a special introductory promotion, customers who purchase or renew MySQL Enterprise silver, gold and platinum level subscriptions by June 30, will receive a complimentary one-year subscription for MySQL Workbench Standard Edition.

Jamie Schultz, vice president of Operations at B Three Solutions, Inc. commented, ”MySQL Workbench SE has allowed our team to improve productivity and deliver products on time and within budget. The tool is very intuitive and we find our new staff can ramp up quickly. This tool has significantly reduced the task-time of our data modeling, leaving more time to concentrate on quality. It also helps eliminate defects early in our development phase.”

Kevin Haas of OpenBI, LLC noted, ”We’ve looked at many applications to manage database development, and MySQL Workbench is the best. It’s an amazingly powerful database management front-end that’s also easy to learn. I use it exclusively now for most data design tasks — from advanced data modeling to general database administration. I recommend it.”

David Alsbury, CEO/President of Alsbury Media Group added, ”MySQL Workbench SE is a powerful visual design tool. I have tried other modeling tools, but the learning curve was too steep. With Workbench, I was up-and-running within minutes. From now on, MySQL Workbench will be an integral part of my development toolkit.”

MySQL is the most popular open source database software in the world. Many of the world’s largest and fastest-growing organizations use MySQL to save time and money powering their high-volume web sites, critical business systems, and packaged software. At www.mysql.com, Sun provides corporate users with commercial subscriptions and services, and actively supports the large MySQL open source developer community.

Sun’s web hosting, is powered by Joyent and NaviSite using Solaris Container virtualization technology, part of the Solaris 10 OS, delivering the infrastructure to help deploy next-generation web applications that can scale based on demand. Sun’s partners also provide value-add services to manage and monitor their hosted environments. With highly flexible hosting offerings, customers can choose to start with a small capacity and grow flexibly as their business and community grows.

To learn more about the new solution, please visit: www.mysql.com/workbench.

For more information about Sun’s web hosting program, please visit: www.sun.com/startupessentials.

To learn more about Sun Microsystems, please visit: http://sun.com.