MySQL’s new enterprise-class support option, including a new network monitoring dashboard, is now available, the company said Monday (Nov. 20, 2006). Announced last month, this edition will make it easier for VARs or integrators to keep a watchful eye on database performance to nip problems in the bud, says Sheery Kritzer, founder of the Boston MySQL User Group. “This isn’t just a new version of the software – it has different service and support capabilities,” she noted. “Even the community binary version of MySQL is robust enough for production use, but the enterprise version ships with an enterprise dashboard, it shows you charts of how much database activity there is, how many connections were made. It’ll show you when the query cache is – or is not – in good shape and help you do good preventative maintenance.” The monitoring and alerts service is available only with the higher-tier silver, gold and platinum support packages which range from $1,995 to $4,995 per year. For full pricing see this company Web site.