About Ronald Bradford
Experience, Strengths and Ideals
My Experience includes
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Over three decades (30 years) professional IT industry experience in a broad range of related disciplines. Core expertise and skills:
- relational database products (RDBMS) including MySQL/Percona/MariaDB/RDS/Aurora, Oracle and Ingres.
- noSQL products including Redis, ElasticSearch, MongoDB and Memcache.
- data warehousing including Redshift.
- big data analytics including Storm and Hadoop
- data pipelines including Kinesis and Kafka.
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Enterprise system/data architecture of large complex transactional software systems and web-based systems. Supporting rapidly changing application requirements, high availability, scalability and large user/data requirements. Fully conversant with in-house, cloud based and hybrid deployments.
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Technical software development skills in multiple programming disciplines including Shell scripting, Python, Java, PHP, Perl, Python, Web (HTML/CSS/XML/JSON), and Linux/Unix operating systems.
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Professional speaker, educational curriculum developer, and writer with experience in technical presentations, workshops, online content publishing, and knowledge transfer. Author of four books.
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Ability to solve difficult and complex problems including performance and scalability in production situations.
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Experience in managing resource teams of varying sizes and staff skills from teams of 1 to 20 people. Ability to work individually to meet goals.
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Expert understanding of data and information including designing, managing, migrating, exchanging, visualizing and supporting all aspects of the best practices for information management.
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Fully conversant with agile methodology principles including eXtreme Programming (XP) and traditional SDLC waterfall methodologies.
My Strengths are
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Motivated to commit towards a definitive goal or objective, develop a plan, and successfully deliver to meet or exceed requirements within agreed timeframes.
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Working actively on multiple complex problems, and in high-pressure environments.
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Producing high quality results in software development, business processes, and system/user documentation.
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Expert in reviewing, analyzing and dissecting existing developed systems in short and critical timeframes.
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Ability to handle and manage multiple tasks to completion.
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Passionate about my technology disciplines and desire to mentor.
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Understanding of emerging technology infrastructures and techniques including virtualization, cloud computing, service-, storage-, and infrastructure availability on demand.
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Excellent English verbal and written skills.
My Ideals
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I strive to find and understand the simplest and easiest solution (KISS) to any problem leading to a more robust, better maintainable and testable technology solution which often results in lower maintenance and improve ROI costs.
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I am passionate about software quality and software productivity and have undertaken graduate study in these disciplines. I use, promote and contribute to the open source communities and related projects.
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I thrive for job satisfaction through a motivating, challenging, hard working but rewarding team environment.
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I promote Agile development ideals especially testing and test driven development, and I believe in embracing change while still accommodating and understanding traditional development methodologies with given businesses and individuals.
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Building great ideas from a team of great people rather than trying to build a team around an idea you are trying to protect. Collaborating. Working with smart and motivated people. Learning something new about my domain expertise from others less experienced is encouraged, not threatening.
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Have fun.
Professional Attributes - Excellence, Hardworking, Multi-tasker, Pride, Analytical, Industry Expert
Work Environment Ideals - Open, Cohesive, Team Work, Challenging, Fast Paced
Technology Ideals - High Quality, Testability, Simplicity, Open Source, Creative
Books by Ronald Bradford
Ronald is author of four books, including three recent books in the Effective MySQL Series, available in print, PDF and Kindle formats.
The Effective MySQL label aims to provide resources for the DBA, Developer and Architect to best use MySQL. This label also includes numerous online presentations and a New York based technology meetup group.
His currently published titles include:
- Effective MySQL: Replication Techniques in Depth by Oracle Press
- Effective MySQL: Backup and Recovery by Oracle Press
- Effective MySQL: Optimizing SQL Statements by Oracle Press
- Expert PHP and MySQL by Wrox publishing
Effective MySQL: Replication Techniques in Depth
By Ronald Bradford and Chris Schneider - September 2012
MySQL replication is ubiquitous with any scalable MySQL installation. Understanding all that MySQL replication can provide for scalability, high availability, backup, failover and testing in a growing MySQL topology is covered in this book. Also included are details and examples of new MySQL 5.6 replication features, and the emerging ecosystem that includes Tungsten replication by Continuent and Galera Cluster by Codership.
Customer Reviews 
4.5 out of 5 stars
"Ronald Bradford has a way of distilling a great deal of information into eight chapters unlike any other author on MySQL. "
"Fantastic! Straightforward MySQL Replication (the advanced stuff!), thorough, easy to read, good examples."
"...conveniently sized paperback that contains a wealth of knowledge that I would have never known."
Effective MySQL: Backup and Recovery
By Ronald Bradford - June 2012
For any successful application to move forward, you must first backup. Backup and recovery may not be as sexy as improving performance or scalability, however disaster is inevitable. This book covers all the available tools, configuration and options for implementing a successful MySQL backup and recovery strategy. Too often organizations fail to realize how important all data is until it is unrecoverable.
Customer Reviews 4.8 out of 5 stars
"...had about 5 minutes to burn, so I picked up his book. I learned 3 things! ...I knew my way around MySQL enough for my needs but I was really impressed."
"For me as a MS SQL DBA in the past this book helped to choose right backup solution in a short time period. "
"This volume needs to be on the desk of any MySQL DBA. ... This book covers all the available tools for DBAs in a straight ahead way and tells you how to use them like only a battle scared DBA can mentor can.
Effective MySQL: Optimizing SQL Statements
By Ronald Bradford - September 2011
SQL is the means of communication to store and retrieve information in a relational database (RDBMS). Knowing how to maximize your statements within the MySQL product is an essential skill for improving performance in your application. This book covers the available commands, theory and supporting metrics to understand how your statements are executed and how to optimize for maximum benefit.
Customer Reviews 4.6 out of 5 stars
"...The best thing I liked about this books is, it is practical. It tells you why, what and how. ...You learn from every sentence of this book."
"Succinct, but in-depth, and very easy to understand. No fluff..."
"Bradford's book was an excellent next step for me. It alerted me to vital issues I didn't even realize existed. "
Expert PHP and MySQL
By Andrew Curioso, Ronald Bradford, Patrick Galbraith - March 2010
Expert PHP and MySQL provides best practices and expert techniques for the PHP and MySQL developer working on delivering high performing and mission critical web applications. With advanced topics including PHP extensions and MySQL User Defined Functions and details on companion technologies including Memcached and Gearman, this book provides tips and tricks that can be immediately applied to your software.
Customer Reviews 
3.8 out of 5 stars
"The explanation given in the book with examples is really simple to understand. It covers from basic to advanced topics."
"If you are at least a basic developer, this book will help you increase your knowledge drastically and create much better apps."
"For once, an "Expert" book where you not only can, but must take the title seriously."
Publications by Ronald Bradford
Expert MySQL Design Practices
Software Developers Journal Issue 13/2013 - pages 109-120
By Ronald Bradford - October 2013
All businesses, organizations, websites and governments use data to present information to users. This ranges from contact information of your company, products for sale, where you are and where you have been, and the transactions for your bank account. The right architectural practices for data management ensures successful scalability of your website, application or product managing data. There is no one way to architect a technology solution, however, there are many ways poor design can seriously impact the need for more hardware and resources, and most importantly, take significant time to re-architect causing development of new features to be affected.
Why is there a need for design practices?
Consider this question. How do you describe the need and role of a software architect to a non technical person? Read the full article.
How to Market MySQL to Your Manager
ODTUG Technical Journal - Third Quarter 2010 - pages 16-18
By Ronald Bradford - September 2010
Why consider MySQL? Now part of the Oracle family of database server products, MySQL is a widely used open source RDBMS. MySQL is very popular in the Web 2.0 and Internet startup space with many popular Web sites using MySQL for their primary data storage.
If you have used the Internet today you would have visited a Web site that runs MySQL. Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Craigslist, Yahoo, NY Times, CNN, Tech Crunch, even Google Adwords and Adsense are just a few of the most popular Web sites that run on MySQL.
The popularity of MySQL can be attributed to two primary factors. First, MySQL is available on most operating systems and is included by default on many Linux distributions or easily installed via the respective distributions package management. Second, MySQL is an integral component in the LAMP software stack which consists of Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl/Python. LAMP is used for many open source software products. The MySQL ecosystem is a diverse and vibrant community with customers, partners and consultants, contributors, and end users. Read the full article.
MySQL migration and risk management
O'Reilly Radar with Mac Slocum
By Ronald Bradford - March 2010
Oracle’s acquisition of Sun has opened up all sorts of questions: Will MySQL get the support it needs? What will become of the MySQL community? Where should database administrators put their efforts and resources? Ronald Bradford can answer that last question. Bradford, an RDBMS expert and a speaker at the upcoming MySQL Conference and Expo, has been guiding DBAs through key aspects of MySQL integration for years. In the following Q&A, he discusses the pros and cons of migrating from Oracle to MySQL (hint: it’s not just about cost savings). He also weighs in on the future of MySQL and its community. Read Article
Recognitions and Awards for Ronald Bradford
MySQL Community Contributor of the Year - 2013
At the annual MySQL conference outstanding contributions to the ecosystem for individuals, corporations and products are recognized. 2013 is the second time Ronald has been acknowledged with an individual community recognition. This award acknowledges his publications of books and continued speaking engagements worldwide. Press
All-time top blogger at Planet MySQL - 2011
An informal recognition from data analysis performed by Darren Cassar of the 500+ contributors to Planet MySQL showed Ronald Bradford as the top MySQL blogger for 2010 with 99 written articles. His analysis also showed that since the inception of this official MySQL blogging aggregator Ronald is the all-time top individual contributor of MySQL content. Press
Oracle MySQL ACE Director - 2010
Oracle Corporation acknowledges outstanding contributions for their products. With over 3,000 products, less than 100 individuals are recognized as Oracle ACE Directors. In 2010, Ronald Bradford was one of the first recognized in MySQL following the acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Press, Oracle ACE Directory.
MySQL Community Member of the Year - 2009
In 2009 Ronald was recognized as one of the most active individuals promoting MySQL in the open source ecosystem. His ongoing contributions included numerous public speaking conference events and his blogging listing him as a top Planet MySQL blogger. Press.
Certifications for Ronald Bradford
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate ID 208KT0YCEEQQ1B3M
- Oracle Certified Professional, MySQL 5.6 Database Administrator
- MySQL Certified Database Administrator 5.0
- MySQL Certified Developer 5.0
- MySQL Cluster Certified Database Administrator 5.1