Mountain View, California – Percona, a long-standing leader in open-source database solutions and services, marked its 20th anniversary this week with a significant rebranding, the launch of a new non-profit foundation, and a celebratory event that underscored its commitment to the open-source ethos. The festivities, held at the prestigious Computer History Museum, were capped by a striking birthday cake in the shape of a goat, a symbolic nod to the "Greatest Of All Time" (GOAT) status Percona attributes to open-source databases in the IT landscape. This milestone arrives at a pivotal moment for both Percona and the broader database community, highlighting a strategic shift towards enhanced services and a renewed dedication to fostering independence in the open-source ecosystem.
The choice of the Computer History Museum as the venue was fitting, resonating with Percona’s deep roots in technological innovation and its enduring impact on the digital infrastructure that powers the modern world. The GOAT cake served as a playful yet potent emblem, drawing attention to the undeniable dominance of open-source databases. Globally, deployments of open-source database systems, such as MySQL and PostgreSQL, have consistently outpaced proprietary alternatives for years, with MySQL and PostgreSQL holding the top two positions in the market for a significant duration. This widespread adoption is a testament to the flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and community-driven development that characterize open-source solutions.
At the heart of Percona’s anniversary announcement was the formation of the OurSQL Foundation. This new non-profit organization is dedicated to cultivating and supporting the MySQL community, providing a crucial platform for developers, users, and companies to collaborate on building and deploying applications. The foundation’s mission extends to facilitating knowledge sharing, providing consistent and transparent feedback on future development, and ensuring the continued growth and independence of MySQL.
Vadim Tkachenko, co-founder of Percona, articulated the foundation’s vision to attendees, emphasizing its role in promoting MySQL’s development and use as an open-source database. "The OurSQL Foundation’s key function is to provide a venue for those involved in the MySQL community to build and deploy applications that use MySQL or a broad range of compatible software, and to share them with their peers," Tkachenko stated. "It also aims to access knowledge and to provide feedback on future development consistently and transparently." He further highlighted the foundation’s commitment to collaborating with all market players, including Oracle, to ensure MySQL’s success for future generations of developers and applications.
The establishment of the OurSQL Foundation is particularly significant in the context of MySQL’s history. Since Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems in 2010, which brought MySQL under its umbrella, concerns have occasionally surfaced regarding the potential for proprietary interests to influence the development trajectory of this foundational open-source database. Percona’s initiative aims to bolster the independence of open-source databases, preempting any threat of vendor lock-in. Recent developments, such as Oracle’s substantial layoffs in its database engineering divisions, including those focused on MySQL, have further underscored the importance of community-led initiatives in safeguarding the future of open-source projects.
"Basically, we wanted to build a future in MySQL and keep it independent," Tkachenko explained to The New Stack. "We are still open to working with Oracle, but we want to build the future of MySQL independent of Oracle. MySQL can grow much, much bigger in this way, in our opinion." This sentiment reflects a strategic imperative to ensure that a database as critical as MySQL remains accessible and adaptable, free from the constraints that can arise from exclusive corporate control.
A Strategic Pivot: Returning to Core Strengths
The anniversary also coincided with a significant strategic reorientation for Percona, marked by the return of Peter Farkas to the CEO position in 2025. Farkas has refocused the company’s mission, emphasizing its identity as a premier services provider rather than solely a platform vendor. This strategic clarity aims to re-center Percona as an indispensable partner for enterprises navigating the complexities of database management, regardless of their underlying infrastructure.
"Percona is, and always will be, a services company," Farkas stated, articulating the company’s renewed purpose. "It’s a moment of strategic clarity that re-centers the company in the sophisticated enterprise market as the ultimate partner for database complexity, regardless of where that data lives." He further clarified the company’s operational focus: "We are here to provide great service and not a platform as a service. This pivot is more than just a business model adjustment; it’s a re-commitment to a core strength that made Percona a powerhouse in the first place."
This strategic shift involves a de-emphasis on Percona’s previous investment in its own Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) platform, Everest. While Everest represented an ambitious undertaking, Percona’s long-standing reputation and the bulk of its revenue have historically stemmed from its robust subscription support services. By doubling down on these core competencies, Percona aims to solidify its position as the go-to expert for database management challenges. The message to enterprise IT leaders is clear: database infrastructure is inherently complex, and Percona provides the specialized expertise required to manage it effectively, positioning itself as the "easy button" for organizations grappling with large-scale database environments.
The Open Way Forward: Embracing Freedom and Choice
Percona’s strategic realignment is powerfully encapsulated in its new tagline: "The Ways Open." This phrase transcends mere marketing jargon, signaling a deep philosophical commitment to combating vendor lock-in, which Percona identifies as a primary existential threat to modern enterprises. The company argues that proprietary platforms, including those from major cloud providers and established database vendors like Oracle, often leverage prohibitive costs to constrain customer choice and complicate data migration.
For Percona, the embrace of open-source principles is not ideological dogma but a pragmatic and logical decision designed to empower customers with freedom and choice. The company’s developers continue to innovate on and provide expert support for established open-source staples such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB. Furthermore, Percona has demonstrated a forward-looking approach by extending its support to emerging, critical projects, most notably Valkey.
Valkey, a high-performance, fully open-source, in-memory key-value data store, emerged as a direct fork of Redis 7.2.4. Its creation was a direct response to Redis’s shift away from a purely open-source licensing model towards a more restrictive source-available license. Percona’s immediate and comprehensive enterprise-grade support for Valkey underscores its unwavering commitment to open-source principles. By offering dedicated 24/7/365 support and migration services for Valkey, Percona ensures that organizations can confidently adopt and utilize this critical technology without facing vendor limitations, thereby preserving the benefits of its permissive BSD license. This strategic backing of Valkey serves as a clear statement of Percona’s dedication to safeguarding the open-source ecosystem.
Tackling Complexity Across the Entire Stack
Percona’s target audience comprises sophisticated IT leaders who manage mission-critical applications across complex hybrid and multi-cloud environments. These are the individuals who understand the paramount importance of secure, high-performing, and highly available database infrastructure. Percona positions itself as the essential partner, providing deep expertise across the entire database lifecycle. As Farkas noted, the company offers the "smarts in-house" to assist companies operating on-premises, those migrating to the cloud, and even those seeking to move away from cloud-based solutions.
Whether an organization requires a strategic assessment of its database environment, assistance with cloud migrations, or comprehensive management of updates and backups, Percona offers a holistic suite of services designed to address every facet of database needs. This end-to-end approach ensures that clients can offload the burden of intricate database management to a trusted expert.
Augmenting Human Expertise, Not Replacing It
In an era characterized by the rapid proliferation of generative AI, Percona maintains a pragmatic and grounded strategy. The company views artificial intelligence not as a replacement for its highly skilled human experts but as a powerful tool for enhancement. Farkas acknowledges the significant internal efficiency gains that AI can offer, particularly within its support services. For instance, when a customer submits a support ticket, AI can rapidly analyze vast volumes of historical data and contextualize the issue, enabling support engineers and consultants to "jump right in" with a comprehensive understanding, rather than spending valuable time on background assimilation.
However, Percona is consciously resisting the industry trend of gratuitous AI product branding. The company has no interest in simply appending "AI" to all its offerings for superficial marketing purposes. This refusal to indiscriminately "sprinkle" AI onto products reflects a strong commitment to transparency and adherence to customer expectations for clear, unvarnished communication.
While Percona firmly believes that human expertise remains critical for service delivery, the company is actively developing products that leverage AI to automate specific tasks. These include root cause analysis, proactive monitoring, and disaster recovery protocols in extreme scenarios. This strategic integration of AI aims to transform certain human-to-human contact services into more streamlined, self-service offerings, thereby enhancing efficiency without compromising the quality of expert human intervention.
A Return to Authenticity and Global Reach
Percona’s distinct market position is further solidified by its unique corporate culture. Farkas describes Percona as a "weird" or "special company," taking pride in its unconventional heritage. With a distributed workforce of approximately 400 employees spanning over 50 countries, Percona operates entirely remotely, fostering a culture of autonomy and global collaboration.
The recent rebrand, including the prominent use of a goat motif, is an intentional effort to align the company’s external image with its authentic, global personality. This new branding signifies a desire to be "more bold" and "more true to ourselves," a trait that resonates deeply with its customer base, particularly within the open-source community, which values transparency and genuine commitment. This evolution represents a return to Percona’s core values, amplified for a new era of technological innovation and service delivery.
