First we need to add Percona yum repo. This can be done by installing rpm provided by Percona.

cd /usr/local/src
wget http://www.percona.com/downloads/percona-release/percona-release-0.0-1.x86_64.rpm
rpm -ivh percona-release-0.0-1.x86_64.rpm

To see all available Percona Server versions, use yum search

yum search Percona-Server-server

To install Percona Server 5.6 (latest version), run

yum install -y Percona-Server-server-56 Percona-Server-devel-56

After installing, run

/usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation

This command will set password for your Percona MySQL Server installation.

It is better to install percona-toolkit, as it is useful in optimizing MySQL server.

yum install percona-toolkit

Starting Percona MySQL Server

To start Percona Server, run

service mysql start

On CentOS, default MySQL service is “mysqld”, with Percona you just use “mysql”.

Stopping Percona MySQL Server

service mysql stop