The next version of MySQL (5.6) is being built and it's owners Oracle are working at improving the software's performance and replication capabilities.

They are making improvements to the core InnoDB engine and the ability to replicate the database.

The last version of MySQL (5.5) was released in December 2010 and Oracle has not yet set as date for the new release, although a preview version was released last month.

Tomas Ulin, Oracle's MySQL vice president of engineering said that much of the work now under way is going into making the database faster and that Oracle plan to release more milestone beta releases before the finished product is released.