What you're describing sounds right and AFAIK it's the same in MySQL as MS SQL Server & Sybase (both of which I've used as well, albeit in somewhat limited capacities). My father-in-law is a DBA for a midsized company that and does fancy DB stuff like OLAP & multi-dimensional databases. I'm going to see him this weekend at the Jersey shore and may bend his ear about it if I need to (my wife & I live in a different country so we don't get to see them very often).