Solid Information Technology today released solidDB for MySQL, a database consisting of the MySQL relational database management system backed by Solid's solidDB Storage Engine. Compared to the commonly used InnoDB, Solid posted more than twice the transactions per second in the TM1 Benchmark for a database with 1,000,000 rows.

The TM1 Benchmark, developed by Toni Strandell at the University of Helsinki in Finland, simulates the database transactions of a mobile phone network's Home Location Register (HLR) database. The company also claims increased scalability in transactions per second with an increasing number of CPUs, compared with InnoDB. Oracle acquired InnoDB in October 2005.

Solid will provide support for solidDB for MySQL, with backup from MySQL AB for that company's portions of the combined product. The product will be licensed under the same dual-license model as MySQL, with users able to choose the GNU General Public License or a proprietary license. The product is available on Linux and Microsoft Windows today, with other MySQL-supported platforms planned for the future.

Apax Partners and CapMan, two investors in Solid, have invested an additional 4 million Euros ($) in order to finance growth into the enterprise database market, Solid announced.

Solid has been releasing betas of the product every two weeks since it was first released under the GPL in July, says Paola Lubet, vice president, Marketing and Business Development. The total code that Solid released under the GPL is about 240,000 lines, Lubet adds.

Solid, founded in 1992, has a strong background in embedded databases for telecom and network applications, with customers including Siemens, Nortel and NEC. "We're very used to sharing our code with out customers. Here is just a broader audience," Lubet says. "It's accelerating our ability to deliver product."