ProxySQL is proud to announce the release of the latest stable version of ProxySQL 2.0.13 on the 15th of July 2020

ProxySQL is a high performance, high availability, protocol aware proxy for MySQL, with a GPL license! It can be downloaded here or alternatively from the ProxySQL Repository, and freely usable and accessible according to the GNU GPL v3.0 license.

Release Overview Highlights

New Features

Although only bug fixes are supposed to go into ProxySQL 2.0, we had to introduce a few minor new features:

• A client can force ProxySQL to run a query in a new connection using a query annotation using create_new_connection=1 in a comment. For example SELECT /* create_new_connection=1 */ 1 . See #2874
• Added …

ProxySQL Firewall Overview

ProxySQL’s flexible query rules engine has many uses, from Read/Write splitting, sharding and even creating firewall blacklist. This allows ProxySQL to be loved by both Performance and Security-minded engineers.

Starting in ProxySQL 2.0.9, ProxySQL has another Security feature: the Firewall Whitelist.

Modeled on MySQL Enterprise Firewall, this allows a security-conscious administrator to tune access to only allow certain queries.

Imagine a situation where your webapp gets hacked, which exposes your user’s database credentials.

If your webapp connects directly to the database, the malicious user can do what they want to your data with the same permissions your webapp has.

So perhaps they can’t just DROP TABLE because you’ve smartly removed DDL permissions …

ProxySQL is proud to announce the fast track release of the latest stable version of ProxySQL 2.0.12 on 18th of May 2020

ProxySQL is a high performance, high availability, protocol aware proxy for MySQL, with a GPL license! It can be downloaded here or alternatively from the ProxySQL Repository, and freely usable and accessible according to the GNU GPL v3.0 license.

Release Overview Highlights Enhancements

• Added tracking capability for variable group_concat_max_len #2709
• Do not compile if GIT_VERSION is not set #2768
• Several new automated …

As hinted at earlier this month, we’re happy to announce our latest on-demand webinar:
“An Introduction to Database Proxies (for MySQL)”

In this webinar, Gilles Rayrat, our VP of Engineering and database proxies guru, shares some of his knowledge on the world of database proxies, how they work, why they’re important and what to use them for.

Starting with a simple database connectivity scenario, Gilles builds up the content by discussing clustered databases and what happens in the case of a failure through to explaining the important role database proxies play; including a more in-depth look into some advanced database connectivity setups and proxies functionalities.
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At re:Invent in Las Vegas in December 2019, AWS announced the public preview of RDS Proxy, a fully managed database proxy that sits between your application and RDS. The new service offers to “share established database connections, improving database efficiency and application scalability”.

But one of the benefits that caught my eye is the ability to reduce the downtime in case of an instance failure and a failover. As for the announcement:

In case of a failure, RDS Proxy automatically connects to a standby database instance while preserving connections from your application and reduces failover times for RDS and Aurora multi-AZ databases by up to 66%”

You can read more about the announcement and the new service on the AWS …

Why does the DIY approach fail to deliver vs. the Tungsten Clustering solution for geo-distributed MySQL multimaster deployments?

Before we dive into the 10 reasons, note why commercially-supported enterprise software is less risky and in fact less costly:

• The labor time spent building and maintaining a DIY solution costs more than a supported solution that just works.
• There is documentation, training, support, so your mission-critical process is never dependent upon an irreplaceable individual.

1. Tungsten Clustering is a complete solution, comprised of the Replicator, Manager and Connector components
   • With DIY, you must first decide the architecture, then select the individual tools to handle each layer of the topology. …

Overview The Skinny

Part of the power of Tungsten Clustering for MySQL / MariaDB is its intelligent MySQL Proxy, known as the Tungsten Connector. The Tungsten Connector has built-in read-write splitting capabilities, and it is also possible to configure different algorithms which select the appropriate slave (i.e. Round-Robin or Lowest-Latency).

The Question Recently, a customer asked us:

How do we best share the load between read-only slaves? Currently, there appears to be an imbalance, with most of the read-only queries reaching just one slave. What may we do to improve this situation?

This customer noticed that a couple of long …

Overview The Skinny

Database Proxies provide a single entry point into MySQL for the calling client applications.

Proxies are wonderful tools to handle various situations like a master role switch to another node for maintenance, or for transparency with read and write connections.

However, when the time comes to perform the switch action, all of the calling clients have been funneled through the proxy, so identification of the calling host from the database itself becomes difficult.

The Problem What is going on?

Let’s illustrate how not knowing the source of a client connection can be an issue for the database administrator…

In the following diagram, three client applications connect to a Tungsten Cluster via the Connector proxy:

…

Overview The Skinny

Part of the power of Tungsten Clustering for MySQL / MariaDB is its intelligent MySQL Proxy, known as the Tungsten Connector. Tungsten Connector has three main modes, and depending on the type of operations you are performing (such as if you need read-write splitting), we help you choose which mode is best.

The Question Recently, a customer asked us:

How can I tell which Tungsten Connector mode I am using: Bridge, Proxy/Direct or Proxy/SmartScale?

The Answer Connect and Observe

You may login through the Connector to tell the difference between Bridge mode and Proxy mode (either Direct or SmartScale):

In Proxy mode, you will see the -tungsten tag appended to the Server version string:

 …

Overview The Skinny

In this blog post we will discuss how to use the Tungsten Connector keep-alive feature to ensure long-running MySQL & MariaDB/Percona Server client sessions stay connected in a Tungsten Cluster.

Agenda What’s Here?

• Briefly explore how the Tungsten Connector works
• Describe the Connector keep-alives – what are they and why do we use them?
• Discuss why the keep-alive feature is not available in Bridge mode and why
• Examine how to tune the keep-alive feature in the Tungsten Connector

Tungsten Connector: A Primer A Very Brief Summary

The Tungsten Connector is an intelligent MySQL database proxy located between the clients and the database servers, providing a single connection point, while routing queries to …