MariaDB on Power — Enterprise Database for IBM Power & AIX | LibrePower
SELECT * FROM power_fleet WHERE arch = 'ppc64le' AND status = 'active' ORDER BY uptime DESC;
INSERT INTO embeddings (id, vec) VALUES (1, VEC_FromText( '[0.12, 0.87, ...]'));
Stable—AIX 7.x · ppc64le
MariaDB sea lion mascot

MariaDB
on Power

First-ever native thread pool on AIX.
Performance Schema · Vector search · 11M+ queries validated.

pollset thread pool Performance Schema MHNSW vectors AIX SRC dnf install
LibrePower
The breakthrough

Native thread pool for AIX

MariaDB's thread pool uses epoll on Linux and kqueue on BSD. AIX has neither. We built one from scratch using pollset — 11 iterations to get ONESHOT simulation right.

1,000 connections
pollset
Worker threads
thread-01 EXEC
thread-02 EXEC
thread-03 EXEC
thread-04 WAIT
thread-05 IDLE
thread-06 IDLE

one-thread-per-connection

1,000 threads for 1,000 clients
Context switching kills CPU
Memory: ~1 GB overhead

→

pool-of-threads (pollset)

6 workers handle 1,000 clients
Minimal context switching
+83% throughput

11.8
MariaDB version
+83%
Thread pool gain
1,000
Concurrent clients
11M+
Queries validated
0
Memory leaks
Live demo

Watch it run

Real queries, real output. MariaDB 11.8 on POWER9 — thread pool, vector search, Performance Schema.

MariaDB [(none)]>
1 / 6
What's in the box

Full MariaDB. Native Power.

Not a stripped-down port. Complete MariaDB with AIX-specific optimizations you won't find anywhere else.

AIX SRC integration

Native startsrc / stopsrc. Proper subsystem — no wrapper scripts.

startsrc -s mariadb11

One-command install

dnf install mariadb11 on AIX 7.2+. Same workflow as Linux.

librepower/mariadb

Full LAMP/LEMP

httpd + php83 + mariadb11. Run WordPress, Nextcloud on AIX.

Complete stack

3 patches upstream

2 CMake fixes + thread pool — submitted back to MariaDB.

Open source

Optimized binaries

-O3 -mcpu=power9. No generic builds — tuned for POWER9+.

-O3 -mcpu=power9

Vector search

MHNSW indexes. Store embeddings next to relational data.

AI / RAG ready

The porting story: 3 weeks of engineering

CMake traps, phantom functions, race conditions, and 11 pollset iterations. The full story of bringing MariaDB to AIX.

Platforms

AIX & Linux. One database.

MariaDB on Power runs on AIX 7.x via LibrePower and ships natively on all major Linux for Power distros.

AIX 7.2+
Linux ppc64le
POWER9 / POWER10
Get started

Run MariaDB on Power

Thread pool, Performance Schema, vector search — native on AIX and Linux for Power.