MySQL Database Tracks 20 Million Members of The FriendFinder Network, Saves $2 Million

FriendFinder Network, the leading global online relationship network, connects members for friendship, dates and, just possibly, a future partner. FriendFinder boasts more than 20 million registered members in 16 different communities. In addition to the main FriendFinder community, the corporation hosts sites for seniors, gays, Christians, Jews, and a variety of other target groups. To track its millions of users and manage its business, FriendFinder relies on MySQL, the world's most popular open source database, to handle massive amounts of data.

“We have about 2,100 databases, ranging in size from a few MB to 30 GB,” says Rob Brackett, director of technology with FriendFinder. “With MySQL, we can deliver fast, dynamic content from any of these databases. In addition, we saved about $2 million in total costs by going with MySQL instead of one of the traditional databases.”

Each database contains user profile and billing information and a profile of what the user is looking for. Brackett says that there are “tons of statistics” ranging from daily signups and revenue right down to individual profile views. This data is handled with 59 Pentium 4 Xeon dual process servers, each with 4GB of RAM and four to six disks using hardware ICP RAID controllers in either a RAID 1+0 or a RAID 5 system. Almost every Web application connects to a series of MySQL servers, either in stand-alone or cluster configuration. A homegrown database interface directs which server or cluster is used.

According to Brackett, price/performance is the biggest benefit of MySQL. At one time, he tested Oracle.

“MySQL is a fraction of the cost of the same service from Oracle,” says Brackett. “In addition to immediate hardware and software savings of more than $2 million, additional savings accrue in maintenance, depreciation, and other factors which are more expensive with traditional databases than with MySQL.”

On the performance side of the equation, speed and stability are mission-critical factors for FriendFinder, whose clients generate approximately 10,000 queries per second. With literally thousands of new members signing up daily, scalability is also critical to FriendFinder's ongoing success. New capacity can be added quickly and easily.

“If our Web sites don't respond promptly and reliably, customers will simply go elsewhere,” says Brackett. “MySQL is faster than other databases and, it's most certainly more stable. The hardware fails more often than MySQL ever has, and we've never had a bug that impacted our revenue.”

FriendFinder also realized savings through MySQL's InnoDB transactional storage engine. A high-traffic table was required to track each new person who registers, and table locking was becoming a problem. Instead of rewriting the application, Brackett simply changed the table format from MyISAM to InnoDB.

In the future, FriendFinder will continue to expand its MySQL environment, as more and more members sign up. It will also be used to test possible new features, find new uses for data, and create new tools that will help the company maintain its leadership position in the marketplace.

“MySQL gives us the speed, scalability and stability that a high-traffic, fast-growing Web site requires,” says Brackett. “It also lets us take a creative approach to solving many of the problems that pop up on a daily basis.”