Leading European Business Directory Provider Seat Pagine Gialle Selects MySQL Cluster

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Major Web Property Owner Uses Fault-Tolerant Database Clustering Architecture to Address Crucial Need for Maximum Scalability & Availability

Cupertino, Calif. & Uppsala, Sweden - MySQL AB, developer of the world's most popular open source database, today announced that Seat Pagine Gialle, one of Europe's leading business directory providers, has selected MySQL® Cluster technology to provide maximum uptime and availability to its heavily-trafficked online properties.

Seat Pagine Gialle possesses a unique multimedia platform that offers business directory services via paper, CD-ROM, phone, and Web. More than 3 million companies are listed in its directories in 1,900 categories, supporting around 1 million customers and advertisers in Europe. Its IT infrastructure manages such services as online Yellow and White page directories -- www.paginegialle.it and www.paginebianche.it -- as well as third-party content distribution to local country portals such as Virgilio, Yahoo.it, Yahoo.co.uk, Thomson Local Services, Corriere della Sera, and Supereva.

MySQL Cluster combines the world's most popular open source database with a fault tolerant database clustering architecture to deliver mission-critical database applications with 99.999% availability.

Explosive Online Growth Calls for Scale-Out Architecture
With Seat Pagine Gialle's interactive Web properties receiving over 1.3 million visits and serving around 12 million database queries per day, its online services are growing very rapidly -- placing ever more pressing demands on the business compared to its traditional paper-based services.

According to Mr. Massimo Brignoli, Internet & Voice IT service manager at Seat Pagine Gialle, "We needed to build a high availability and high-performance database solution -- supporting Web and voice -- that would allow us to acquire new data sources rapidly while giving us the ability to support the needs of the business in a highly flexible manner."

Seat Pagine Gialle chose MySQL Cluster to achieve this. MySQL Cluster is enabling Seat Pagine Gialle to deliver the performance and high throughput required to meet its demanding needs, and to incrementally scale its business without having to invest in
expensive hardware. The modular structure of this solution, known as "Scale-Out", will give Seat the ability to rapidly grow and add to its data architecture in the future. MySQL Cluster's flexible distributed architecture has thus given the company complete control over the level of performance, reliability and scalability of its database applications.

Says Brignoli, "We initially built a MySQL Cluster prototype so we could compare it with an internally-developed solution. There was no contest. MySQL Cluster provided overwhelmingly better performance, availability and strength from every perspective. We aim to use MySQL Cluster as our only data repository, keeping the main business logic in the search engine. We are planning to review our entire Internet/Voice architecture within a MySQL Cluster context, with the ultimate goal of having all of Seat's multimedia products managed by MySQL Cluster technology."

Commenting on Seat Pagine Gialle's use of MySQL software and professional services, Bertrand Mattheli?, MySQL's director of Marketing for EMEA, said: "We are very proud to have Seat Pagine Gialle as our customer. This is further evidence that MySQL Cluster is meeting the demands of major enterprises. Seat Pagine Gialle joins a growing set of leading European companies relying on MySQL Cluster for mission critical elements."

About MySQL Cluster

MySQL Cluster is a special high-end version of the MySQL database specifically designed for fault-tolerant, mission-critical applications that need strict scalability and high-availability. It stores data in memory and utilizes a shared-nothing approach to clustering, enabling linear scalability and high performance. Additional information is available at http://www.mysql.com/cluster.

About SEAT Pagine Gialle S.p.A

The Seat Pagine Gialle Group is the European leader and one of the main operators at world level in the sector of multimedia telephone directories, offering "print-voice-online" directories as well as complementary services such as one-to-one marketing.

SEAT Pagine Gialle has been engaged in information services, and search and communications tools for 80 years. It is a success story based on a brand that is familiar to everyone, a sales network employing 2,000 persons, a technology that is constantly evolving and a database that includes 20 million households and 3 million professional operators, and a wide range of products guaranteeing a real integrated system of communications to about 700,000 customers. 58 million volumes distributed to the homes and offices of Italian subscribers (2004 figures), 17 million enquiries through the number 89.24.24 (2004 figures) and 218 million visits on online directories (2004 figures) connect people and businesses, bringing together needs and solutions and promoting economic exchanges.

About MySQL

MySQL AB develops and supports a family of high performance, affordable database products -- including MySQL Network, a comprehensive set of certified software and premium support services. The company's flagship product is the MySQL Server, the world's most popular open source database, with more than 8 million active installations. Many of the world's largest organizations, including Yahoo!, Alcatel, The Associated Press, Suzuki and NASA are realizing significant cost savings by using MySQL to power high-volume Web sites, business-critical enterprise applications and packaged software.

With headquarters in Sweden and the United States -- and operations around the world -- MySQL AB supports both open source values and corporate customers' needs in a profitable, sustainable business. For more information about MySQL, please visit www.mysql.com.

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