Oracle has announced an update to its scalable MySQL Cluster database platform, adding features such as an Auto-Installer to ease deployment and foreign key support to make it easier to integrate with packaged applications, both designed to make it more attractive to customers.

MySQL Cluster 7.3 introduces a number of enhancements intended to drive the software more and more into commodity use cases around the web and elsewhere, the firm said. The major new features are the Auto-Installer tool, foreign key support, integration with MySQL 5.6 and NoSQL JavaScript for Node.js.

However, Oracle has not compromised on the enterprise-grade capabilities of the clustering technology, according to Tomas Ulin, vice president of MySQL Engineering at Oracle.

“From the get-go it’s been about high-availability and scaling, and that continues to be the main attributes of MySQL Cluster 7.3,” he said.

With the Auto-Installer, Oracle wants to ensure the database can be used by anyone, Ulin said. Users just tell the tool what machines they want Cluster to run on, and it will scan the network, detect the hosts and check what their hardware resources such as CPUs and memory. With input from the user on what type of workload they intend to run, Auto-Installer suggests configurations based on Oracle best practices.

By adding foreign key support, Oracle hopes to see more adoption in the internet hosting industry and e-commerce by making it easier to integrate with packaged applications.

“We hope to reach even more customers through this foreign key support where a great many packaged solutions that are available require this,” Ulin said.

Another piece of the make it easy puzzle is Native JavaScript access to MySQL Cluster, implemented as a module for node.js.

“For those that don’t want to learn about SQL, they should be attracted by this interface, which makes it easier to get going,” said Ulin.

Integration with MySQL 5.6 means that MySQL Cluster can make use of improvements in the latest version of Oracle’s database, released in February, such as Optimiser improvements that boost query performance.

Ulin said that MySQL Cluster is ideal for applications needing millisecond response times, low cost and application agility with support for a number of development languages and frameworks, plus SQL or NoSQL options.