This paper presents a proposed conceptual architecture for the MySQL Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). The paper first goes into a brief examination of general RDBMS’s. This research serves as a “roadmap” for further architectural discovery. It is a good assumption that the architecture for MySQL is similar to that of a general RDBMS architecture. Beyond this, MySQL documentation and literature specific to MySQL was examined to assist in defining the actual conceptual architecture of MySQL.

The MySQL architecture was first broken down into three layers: an application layer, a logical layer, and a physical layer. The logical layer, which is focused upon in detail, was broken down into four components: a query processor, a transaction management system, a recovery management system, and a storage management system.

It should be noted that recovering a conceptual architecture has a noticeable envelope for inaccuracy; putting the pieces of the puzzle together depends not only on facts, but also on relative intuition and logic, which may vary between the realization of the researchers and the designers. Thus, there should never be a guarantee that a conceptual architecture is completely correct; rather, someone who had no part in development should use the conceptual architecture as a general interpretation of the true architecture for MySQL.

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