Integration of MySQL Cluster into MySQL replication: This will make it possible to update from any MySQL Server in the cluster and still have the MySQL Replication handled by one of the MySQL Servers in the cluster, with the state of the slave side remaining consistent with the cluster acting as the master.

Support for disk-based records: Records on disk will be supported. Indexed fields including the primary key hash index must still be stored in RAM but all other fields can be on disk.

Variable-sized records: A column defined as VARCHAR(255) currently uses 260 bytes of storage independent of what is stored in any particular record. In MySQL 5.1 Cluster tables, only the portion of the column actually taken up by the record will be stored. This will make possible a reduction in space requirements for such columns by a factor of 5 in many cases.

User-defined partitioning: Users will be able to define partitions based on columns that are part of the primary key. The MySQL Server will be able to discover whether it is possible to prune away some of the partitions from the WHERE clause. Partitioning based on KEY, HASH, RANGE, and LIST handlers will be possible, as well as subpartitioning. This feature should also be available for many other handlers, and not only NDB Cluster.