In the previous post, we setup a Drupal website with MySQL as backend on a different compute instance in a different subnet.

Today we will increase the High Availability of our Database by transforming this single MySQL instance into a MySQL InnoDB Cluster!

The architecture will be the following:

We will use 2 different Availability Domains (AD), of course we could have used 3, it’s up to you.

We will install MySQL Router on the Application Server as advised, and we will modify our Drupal’s configuration to connect locally on the R/W port of the MySQL Router.

You will see that this is very easy to achieve, the most …

This article is an update of a previous post explaining how to setup a second cluster on a second data center to be used as disaster recovery (or to run some off site queries, like long reports, etc..).

This new article covers also the CLONE plugin. Before you ask, CLONE plugin and Replication Channel Based Filters are only available in MySQL 8.0 ! It’s time to upgrade, MySQL 8 is Great !

Also, for DR only, a single MySQL instance acting as asynchronous replica is enough. But if for any reason you want to also have a HA cluster in the second data …

MySQL InnoDB Cluster is the most easy and integrated High Availability solution for MySQL.

The solution is composed of:

• MySQL Server
• MySQL Group Replication Plugin
• MySQL Clone Plugin
• MySQL Router
• MySQL Shell

All those components are developed and tested together to provide the easiest and best experience to the MySQL users.

As the MySQL Router is a TCP Level 4 router (like HA Proxy), some users requiring a more “intelligent” proxy having other extra features like caching, read/write splitting in relation with the user or SQL, firewall, … may be interested in using ProxySQL… and this is a good choice !

ProxySQL / MySQL Router in OSI Model

However, even is ProxySQL supports MysQL Group Replication, for …

Overview The Skinny

In this blog post we explore various options for performance tuning MySQL server for better slave replication performance.

A Tungsten Cluster relies upon the Tungsten Replicator to move events from the master node to the slaves. Once the event has been transferred to the slave as THL on disk, the slave applier will then attempt to write it to the database. The Replicator can only apply events as fast as MySQL allows. If the MySQL server is somehow slow or blocking, then the Replicator will be as well.

A properly-tuned database server in addition to infrastructure and SysAdmin best practices will go quite a long way towards high-performance slave apply.

The Question Recently, a customer asked us:

During one of our load tests, we had a peak of 60k writes/min, averaging …

Overview The Skinny

Part of the power of Tungsten Clustering for MySQL / MariaDB is the ability to perform true zero-downtime maintenance, allowing client applications full access to the database layer, while taking out individual nodes for maintenance and upgrades. In this blog post we cover various types of maintenance scenarios, the best practices associated with each type of action, and the key steps to ensure the highest availability.

Important Questions Understand the Environment as a Whole First

There are a number of questions to ask when planning cluster maintenance that are critical to understand before starting.

For example:

1. What is the cluster topology?
   • Standalone (connectors write to single cluster master)
     Single cluster: …

Database Administration is a tough, often ungrateful job. Especially if you run a 24/7 business-critical MySQL or MariaDB deployment.

MySQL has proven to be a remarkably solid database which supports billions of dollars in revenue. On some level this very solidity creates a false sense of security. There are many things that can wrong at any given time, whether that is a change to your app, a bug in the database, hardware failure or just simply running out of disk space.

Percona recently conducted a poll: “What keeps you up at night?”

Not surprisingly, “Downtime/HA” is very high on the list.

While there are many challenging issues and tasks that a DBA must deal …

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:

…

The Question Recently, a customer asked us:

How would we manually move the relay role from a failing node to a slave in a Composite Tungsten Cluster passive site?

The Answer The Long and the Short of It

There are two ways to handle this procedure manually when the usual switch command fails to work as expected. One is short and reasonably automated, and the other is much more detailed and manual.

Of course, the usual procedure is to just issue the switch command in the passive cluster:

use west
set policy maintenance
switch
set policy automatic

The below article describes what to do when the switch command does not move the relay role to another node.

SHORT

Below is the list of cctrl commands that would be run for the basic, short version, which (aside from handling policy changes) is really only three …

Create a MySQL InnoDB Cluster using MySQL 8.0 has always been very easy. Certainly thanks to MySQL Shell and server enhancements like SET PERSIST and RESTART statement (see this post).

The most complicated part to deal with was the existing and none existing data. In fact GTID sets must be compatible.

Let me explain that with some examples:

Example 1 – empty servers

If you have empty servers with GTID enabled, manually creating credentials to connect to each MySQL instances will generate GTIDs that will prevent nodes to …

Overview The Skinny

Tungsten Clustering provides high availability, disaster recovery, and a host of other benefits for MySQL / MariaDB / Percona Server databases. In this blog post we will explore some of the shell aliases I use every day to administer various Tungsten Clusters.

Shell Aliases: A Quick Review Quick and Easy

A shell alias is simply a way to create a shortcut for frequently-used command sequences.

For example, I like to shorten the command clear to cls, i.e.

shell> alias cls=clear
shell> cls

If you create an alias on the fly it will be lost when the shell exits.

To save aliases so they are available to all shell sessions, update your shell’s profile or rc script.

For example, add the below line to the bottom of …