Как отсортировать все записи по дате?
SELECT YEAR(updated_at) AS year, MONTHNAME(updated_at) AS month, COUNT(*) AS cnt FROM tickets GROUP BY year, month
Чтобы и год и месяц сортировались по возрастанию

SELECT YEAR(updated_at) AS year, MONTHNAME(updated_at) AS month, COUNT(*) AS cnt FROM tickets GROUP BY year, month ORDER BY updated_at
Ошикбка #1055 - Expression #1 of ORDER BY clause is not in GROUP BY clause and contains nonaggregated column 'school2.tickets.updated_at' which is not functionally dependent on columns in GROUP BY clause; this is incompatible with sql_mode=only_full_group_by

Агрох,

тогда лучше так:
SELECT YEAR(updated_at) AS year, MONTHNAME(updated_at) AS month, MONTH(updated_at) AS mon, COUNT(*) AS cnt FROM tickets GROUP BY year, mon, month

хорошо, а как теперь установить русскую локализацию для mysql? У меня сервер Ubuntu 16.04, mysql 5.7