Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 13
MySQL in the Cloud
It should be no surprise that many people are running MySQL in the cloud, sometimes
at a very large scale. In our experience, most of them are using the Amazon Web Services
(AWS) platform: specifically Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Elastic Block
Store (EBS) volumes, and, to a lesser extent, the Relational Database Service (RDS).
One way to frame the discussion about MySQL in the cloud is to divide it into two
rough categories:
IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)
IaaS is cloud infrastructure for hosting your own MySQL server. You can purchase
a virtual server resource in the cloud and use it to install and run your MySQL
instance. You can configure MySQL and the operating system as you wish, but you
have no access or insight into the underlying physical hardware.
DBaaS (Database as a Service)
MySQL itself is the cloud-managed resource. You receive access credentials to a
MySQL server. You can configure some of MySQL's settings, but you have no
access or insight into the underlying operating system or virtual server instance.
An example is Amazon RDS running MySQL. Some of these services aren't really
stock MySQL, but they are compatible with the MySQL protocol and query
language.
We focus most on the first category: cloud hosting on platforms such as AWS, Rack-
space Cloud, and Joyent.
1
There are many good resources for learning how to deploy
and manage MySQL and the resources needed to run it, and there are too many plat-
forms for us to cover them all, so we don't show code samples or discuss operational
techniques. Instead, this chapter focuses on the key differences between running
MySQL in the cloud versus traditional server deployment, and on the resulting eco-
nomic and performance characteristics. We assume that you're familiar with cloud
computing. This is not an introduction to the topic; our goal is just to help you avoid
some pitfalls you might encounter if you're not a MySQL-in-the-cloud expert.
1. OK, OK, we admit it. Amazon Web Services
is
the cloud. This chapter is mostly about AWS.
