Data Daz (dasini.net) – Data Systems, AI, and Real-World Insights

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MySQL 9.7.0 LTS, released in April 2026, is a major milestone. It establishes the new 9.7.x Long-Term Support line, giving organizations a stable, eight-year supported branch to standardize on, while consolidating the innovations delivered during the 9.x innovation cycle.
This release significantly expands MySQL Community Edition with capabilities previously restricted to Enterprise Edition.

This report is designed to be a convenient, go-to document for staying aware of the most important features of MySQL 9.7 and MySQL HeatWave 9.7. It’s structured for quick consumption, with concise summaries and links to deeper resources.

Here’s a sneak peek at what’s inside:

• The Shift to MySQL 9.7.0 LTS: What this new Long-Term Support branch means for your stability and upgrade strategy.
• Community Edition Upgrades: Some major capabilities moved to the Community Edition, including OpenTelemetry support, DML for JSON Duality Views, and the Hypergraph Optimizer.
• Enterprise Enhancements: Deep dives into the new GA Dynamic Data Masking (protect sensitive data without app changes!) and Audit Log improvements.
• MySQL HeatWave Exclusives: Features you won’t find in standard editions, such as the newly simplified “Create Replica DB System” for Disaster Recovery on OCI.

Community Contributions

As always, a special thank you to the MySQL community. This release includes contributions from individuals at Alibaba, Amazon, Tencent, Percona, and others, helping to improve the optimizer, parser, prepared statements, and more

Whether you are planning an upgrade, evaluating new features, or simply want to stay informed about the MySQL ecosystem, I hope this report will save you some time :).

As always, feedback is very welcome. If you notice something I missed or have suggestions for future editions, feel free to leave a comment or reach out on social media.

Happy reading!

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Filed under:
AI, Cloud, HeatWave, High Availability, MDS, Monitoring, MySQL, Security by Olivier DASINI