I was at the Perl conference in maybe 1999 or 2000 where there was some guy giving a MySQL talk. It wasn't Monty, but he was in the audience. I asked a question during question time about enabling ssl for encrypted replication, and the guy giving the talk said "Sorry, I don't know if/when that'll happen". Monty stood up and said "I've just done that. I'll check it in tonight, come grab me out in the corridor if you'd like me to mail you the patch."

I then spent the next 7-8 years running replicated MySQL databases in SF/Dallas/London/Singapore/Sydney. It worked really well for us.