I went to Boston for 2 days of MySQL Cluster pre-sales training from Oracle at the old Sun campus on Network Drive in Burlington.
Although MySQL is one of the world’s most popular databases, MySQL Cluster does not have a similarly large open community.
To get the most out of MySQL Cluster, a company would need to either hire a DBA or database engineer with previous Cluster-specific experience, or pay Oracle for consulting, training and support.
Oracle has the following support options for MySQL Cluster:
- Online MySQL Reference Manual
- Oracle Pre-sales training (demos and unstructured training – free for Oracle customers)
- Oracle University classes (structured training classes)
- Oracle Consulting for Open Source products (Oracle Linux, MySQL Cluster, Oracle RAC) – any topics you want, including training, performance tuning and application debugging.
- My Oracle Support
I prepared in advance by reading the online manual and building a 4-node cluster, then spent 2 days one-on-one with a MySQL Cluster and telco expert who started with Cluster several years ago while at MySQL AB.
The topics loosely summarized were:
- demo of MySQL Cluster manager and online schema changes under a simulated load (on a Windows notebook)
- overview of use cases (telco and web)
- architecture
- database management
- differences with InnoDB.
Public transit: take the Logan Airport shuttle to the subway and disembark at South Station, take the subway to Alewife Station (9 stops), and take the MBTA bus 150/151 to Burlington. In Boston accent, “Pawk” = “Park”, and “Skaware” = “Square.” 
One of the best views is when the bus crosses the Charles River, looking towards Boston Harbor.
There are at least 4 hotels within 1.5 miles of Network Drive.
Legal Seafoods, located throughout Boston, including the airport, serves excellent clam chowder.