The value proposition of the new Percona Server 5.6—an open-source drop-in replacement for MySQL—says Percona, is that it includes much of the same functionality of MySQL 5.6 Enterprise Edition yet comes as a free download. The new 5.6 release, adds Percona, offers all the improvements found in MySQL 5.6 Community Edition plus scalability, availability, backup and security features found only in MySQL 5.6 Enterprise Edition, which requires an Oracle support contract to access. Superior diagnostics and improved integration with other Percona software also are included—for example, Percona Server 5.6 can be migrated to Percona XtraDB Cluster to create a high-availability MySQL cluster. Percona notes that by removing many resource contentions that slow MySQL 5.6 Community Edition, Percona Server 5.6 delivers better performance at more than 150 concurrent threads and up to 4x better performance at 1,000 or more concurrent threads. Percona's stated open "secret" to remaining more advanced and current than the latest release of MySQL, yet being drop-in-compatible, is its penchant for pushing out bug fixes and performance enhancements faster than Oracle.