MySQL Cluster FAQ

Q: What is MySQL Cluster?

A: MySQL Cluster combines the world's most popular open source database with a parallel-server, fault tolerant clustering architecture so you can deliver mission-critical database applications with 99.999% availability. MySQL Cluster maximizes the availability of your business applications in an open and cost-effective manner. MySQL Clusters enables organizations to overcome the traditional barriers to adopting high-availability clustering solutions by:

• Reducing software costs with an affordable licensing model.
• Reducing hardware costs by running on commodity hardware.
• Reducing operating costs by reducing the need for specialized administration skills.

Q: What are the key features and benefits of MySQL Cluster?

• High Availability - Cost-effectively deliver "5 nines" availability using parallel server architecture with no single point of failure.
• Dynamic Scalability - Incrementally scale-out your applications as your business needs grow, using commodity hardware.
• High-Performance - Deliver the performance and throughput required to meet the most demanding enterprise applications.
• Low cost - Achieve mainframe reliability and scalability using commodity hardware.

Q: What are the typical performance metrics for MySQL Cluster?

• Availability
  • 99.999% (<5 min downtime / year)
• Performance
  • Response Time 5-10 millisecond (with synchronous replication)
  • Throughput of 10,000+ replicated transactions/sec on a 2 Node Cluster, with 1 CPU Per Node (minimal configuration)
  • Throughput of 100,000 replicated transactions/sec on 4 Node Cluster, with 2 CPU Per Node (low-end configuration)
• Failover
  • Sub-second failover enables you to deliver service without interruption
• Scalability
  • Near-linear scalability on preferred system configurations.
  • For cost-effective scale-out:
    • Add more storage nodes (8, 16, 32, etc.) per cluster, or
    • Add more CPUs (4, 8, etc.) or
    • Add more Memory (16GB, 32GB, etc.) per storage node

Q: Who are the target customers for MySQL Cluster?

A: Any organization that is interested in mainframe reliability on cost-effective, commodity hardware and software. Typical customers include telecommunication and financial services companies that need throughput to handle high volumes of transactions. However, MySQL Cluster is an affordable solution for any company requiring high availability. Specific users and organizations include:

• Existing MySQL Users Existing MySQL users who need to accommodate increasing throughput of their business-critical applications as a result of the increasing number of users as well as the growing volumes of data and transactions.
• Telecom Customers Telecom organizations who are using commercial databases such as TimesTen or proprietary home grown solutions but now find them too expensive and time consuming to maintain.
• Government Organizations Government organizations that are constrained by budget, and are aggressively evaluating an open source stack.
• Corporate IT and Development Managers Any organization that requires high-availability to reduce the cost of database downtime for business critical applications such as CRM, Financials, and e-commerce applications.
• Organization that need a cost effective open source stack MySQL Cluster provides a cost-effective solution for high-availability requirements.

Q: How is MySQL Cluster different from Oracle RAC?

A: MySQL Cluster and Oracle RAC are both focused on delivering high-availability database solutions. However, Oracle uses a "shared storage" architecture, whereas MySQL Cluster uses a "shared nothing" architecture.

Oracle RAC is a complex product which requires significant investment in hardware and software as well as development and administration skills. Oracle RAC relies on a "shared storage" architecture that requires an additional investment in SAN (Storage Area Network) infrastructure. The requirement for a SAN results in:

• An additional expense for customers since they have to turn to a 3rd party for a networked storage solution. A shared disk can cost $15k-20k in addition to the database license even for a small implementation.
• Recovery from a failed node requires access to the shard-disk which increases time to failover to minutes vs. the sub-second failover time of MySQL Cluster.
• A single point of failure in the cluster.

MySQL Cluster provides a high-availability (99.999%) database for the mass market. MySQL Cluster does not require specialized hardware or skills. MySQL Cluster is a "shared nothing" architecture which does not require any additional infrastructure investments.

Q: What are the minimum system requirements for MySQL Cluster?

A: A minimum of three computers is required to run a viable cluster. However, the minimum recommended number of computers in a MySQL Cluster is four: one each to run the management and SQL nodes, and two computers to serve as data nodes:

Q: What are the preferred system requirements for MySQL Cluster?

A: Each Cluster Node:

Q: Where are the References for MySQL Cluster?

A: See:

http://www.mysql.com/customers/?database
http://mysqluc.com/presentations/mysql06/hart_howard.pdf

Q: Where are the Presentations about MySQL Cluster?

A: See:

http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/on-demand-webinars/hp-voip-2006-09-21.php
http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/on-demand-webinars/cluster-2006-09-11.php
http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/on-demand-webinars/cluster51-2006-07-13.php

Q: Where are the Docs for MySQL Cluster?

A: See: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/mysql-cluster.html

Q: Where is the Discussion Forum for MySQL Cluster?

A: See: http://forums.mysql.com/list.php?25