"Introduction
"MySQL has an interesting architecture that sets it apart from some other enterprise database systems. It allows you to plug in different modules to handle storage. What that means to end users is that it is quite flexible, offering an interesting array of different storage engines with different features, strengths, and tradeoffs.
MySQL's Storage Engine Architecture
"The various storage engines as the name implies manage how data is stored and retrieved on disk, and the features available therein. One important thing to keep in mind however is that MySQL doesn't manage transactions at the server level, but at the storage engine level. This is great if you have a mix of InnoDB tables in a query, or a mix of MyISAM ones, but if you have both in the same transaction, not only might performance be impacted, but also results may not be reliable. Although applications can use a mix of different types of tables using different underlying engines, single queries and transactions should not in general do this.
"Do you want to see what storage engines you have available? Just query your MySQL variables as follows:"
