Archive for July 19, 2011

MySQL Cluster 7.1.15 released


The binary version for MySQL Cluster 7.1.15 has now been made available at http://www.mysql.com/downloads/cluster/

A description of all of the changes (fixes) that have gone into MySQL Cluster 7.1.15 (compared to 7.1.13) can be found in the official MySQL Cluster documentation for Cluster 7.1.14 & 7.1.15.





Direct access to MySQL Cluster through Memcached API – free webinar

Memcached access to MySQL Cluster

As described in an earlier post Memcached is an extremely popular caching layer used in most big web properties and we’re adding the ability to access MySQL Cluster directly using the familiar Memcached key-value/NoSQL API without needing to go through the MySQL Server. There is a huge amount of flexibility built into this solution – including:

  • Decide what data should be held only in the Memcached server; what should be written straight through to MySQL Cluster and then discarded  and what data should be cached in Memcached but persisted in MySQL Cluster
  • Where data is held both in Cluster and the Memcached server, they can automatically be kept in sync
  • By default it’s completely schema-less, all key-value pairs will be transparently stored in a single table within MySQL Cluster behind the scenes
  • Can map key-prefixes to columns in MySQL Cluster tables – allowing simultaneous access to the same data using SQL.
Mat Keep along with JD Duncan (lead developer for this functionality) will be hosting a free webinar on this topic (and I’ll be helping with the Q&A) on Wednesday (20th July 2011) at 9:00 am Pacific (17:00 UK, 18:00 CET). As always, please register for the event even if you can’t make this time as you’ll be sent a link to the recording.




MySQL Cluster Manager 1.1.1 (GA) Available

The latest (GA) version of MySQL Cluster Manager is available through Oracle’s E-Delivery site. You can download the software and try it out for yourselves (just select “MySQL Database” as the product pack, select your platform, click “Go” and then scroll down to get the software).

So what’s new in this version

If you’ve looked at MCM in the past then the first thing that you’ll notice is that it’s now much simpler to get it up and running – in particular the configuration and running of the agent has now been reduced to just running a single executable (called "mcmd").

The second change is that you can now stop the MCM agents from within the MCM CLI – for example "stop agents mysite" will safely stop all of the agents running on the hosts defined by "mysite".

Those 2 changes make it much simpler for the novice user to get up and running quickly; for the more expert user, the most signifficant change is that MCM can now manage multiple clusters.

Obviously, there are a bunch of more minor changes as well as bug fixes.

Refresher – So What is MySQL Cluster Manager?

MySQL Cluster Manager provides the ability to control the entire cluster as a single entity, while also supporting very granular control down to individual processes within the cluster itself.  Administrators are able to create and delete entire clusters, and to start, stop and restart the cluster with a single command.  As a result, administrators no longer need to manually restart each data node in turn, in the correct sequence, or to create custom scripts to automate the process.

MySQL Cluster Manager automates on-line management operations, including the upgrade, downgrade and reconfiguration of running clusters as well as adding nodes on-line for dynamic, on-demand scalability, without interrupting applications or clients accessing the database.  Administrators no longer need to manually edit configuration files and distribute them to other cluster nodes, or to determine if rolling restarts are required. MySQL Cluster Manager handles all of these tasks, thereby enforcing best practices and making on-line operations significantly simpler, faster and less error-prone.

MySQL Cluster Manager is able to monitor cluster health at both an Operating System and per-process level by automatically polling each node in the cluster.  It can detect if a process or server host is alive, dead or has hung, allowing for faster problem detection, resolution and recovery.

To deliver 99.999% availability, MySQL Cluster has the capability to self-heal from failures by automatically restarting failed Data Nodes, without manual intervention.  MySQL Cluster Manager extends this functionality by also monitoring and automatically recovering SQL and Management Nodes.

How is it Implemented?

MySQL Cluster Manager Architecture

MySQL Cluster Manager is implemented as a series of agent processes that co-operate with each other to manage the MySQL Cluster deployment; one agent running on each host machine that will be running a MySQL Cluster node (process). The administrator uses the regular mysql command to connect to any one of the agents using the port number of the agent (defaults to 1862 compared to the MySQL Server default of 3306).

How is it Used?

When using MySQL Cluster Manager to manage your MySQL Cluster deployment, the administrator no longer edits the configuration files (for example config.ini and my.cnf); instead, these files are created and maintained by the agents. In fact, if those files are manually edited, the changes will be overwritten by the configuration information which is held within the agents. Each agent stores all of the cluster configuration data, but it only creates the configuration files that are required for the nodes that are configured to run on that host.

Similarly when using MySQL Cluster Manager, management actions must not be performed by the administrator using the ndb_mgm command (which directly connects to the management node meaning that the agents themselves would not have visibility of any operations performed with it).

When using MySQL Cluster Manager, the ‘angel’ processes are no longer needed (or created) for the data nodes, as it becomes the responsibility of the agents to detect the failure of the data nodes and recreate them as required. Additionally, the agents extend this functionality to include the management nodes and MySQL Server nodes.

Installing, Configuring & Running MySQL Cluster Manager

On each host that will run Cluster nodes, install the MCM agent. To do this, just download the zip file from Oracle E-Delivery and then extract the contents into a convenient location:

$ unzip V27167-01.zip
$ tar xf mysql-cluster-manager-1.1.1-linux-rhel5-x86-32bit.tar.gz
$ mv mysql-cluster-manager-1.1.1-linux-rhel5-x86-32bit ~/mcm

Starting the agent is then trivial (remember to reapeat on each host though):

$ cd ~/mcm
$ bin/mcmd&

Next, some examples of how to use MCM.

Example 1: Create a Cluster from Scratch

The first step is to connect to one of the agents and then define the set of hosts that will be used for the Cluster:

$ mysql -h 192.168.0.10 -P 1862 -u admin -psuper --prompt='mcm> ' 
mcm> create site --hosts=192.168.0.10,192.168.0.11,192.168.0.12,192.168.0.13 mysite;

Next step is to tell the agents where they can find the Cluster binaries that are going to be used, define what the Cluster will look like (which nodes/processes will run on which hosts) and then start the Cluster:

mcm> add package --basedir=/usr/local/mysql_6_3_27a 6.3.27a; 
mcm> create cluster --package=6.3.26 --processhosts=ndb_mgmd@192.168.0.10,ndb_mgmd@192.168.0.11, 
  ndbd@192.168.0.12,ndbd@192.168.0.13,ndbd@192.168.0.12, ndbd@192.168.0.13,mysqld@192.168.0.10,
  mysqld@192.168.0.11 mycluster; 
mcm> start cluster mycluster; 

Example 2: On-Line upgrade of a Cluster

A great example of how MySQL Cluster Manager can simplify management operations is upgrading the Cluster software. If performing the upgrade by hand then there are dozens of steps to run through which is time consuming, tedious and subject to human error (for example, restarting nodes in the wrong order could result in an outage). With MySQL Cluster Manager, it is reduced to two commands – define where to find the new version of the software and then perform the rolling, in-service upgrade:

mcm> add package --basedir=/usr/local/mysql_7_1_8 7.1.8; 
mcm> upgrade cluster --package=7.1.8 mycluster;

Behind the scenes, each node will be halted and then restarted with the new version – ensuring that there is no loss of service.

Example 3: Automated On-Line Add-Node

Automated On-Line Add-Node

Since MySQL Cluster 7.0 it has been possible to add new nodes to a Cluster while it is still in service; there are a number of steps involved and as with on-line upgrades if the administrator makes a mistake then it could lead to an outage.

 

 

We’ll now look at how this is automated when using MySQL Cluster Manager; the first step is to add any new hosts (servers) to the site and indicate where those hosts can find the Cluster software:

mcm> add hosts --hosts=192.168.0.14,192.168.0.15 mysite; 
mcm> add package --basedir=/usr/local/mysql_7_1_8 
  --hosts=192.168.0.14,192.168.0.15 7_1_8;

The new nodes can then be added to the Cluster and then started up:

mcm> add process --processhosts=mysqld@192.168.0.10,mysqld@192.168.0.11,ndbd@192.168.0.14,
  ndbd@192.168.0.15,ndbd@192.168.0.14,ndbd@192.168.0.15 mycluster; 
mcm> start process --added mycluster; 

The Cluster has now been extended but you need to perform a final step from any of the MySQL Servers to repartition the existing Cluster tables to use the new data nodes:

mysql> ALTER ONLINE TABLE <table-name> REORGANIZE PARTITION; 
mysql> OPTIMIZE TABLE <table-name>;

Where can I found out more?

There is a lot of extra information to help you understand what can be achieved with MySQL Cluster Manager and how to use it:





Webinar: “Oracle VM Template for MySQL Enterprise Edition” on Wednesday

HA Provided by OVM

Join us for a webinar this Wednesday (13th July) to understand more about the benefits of using the new Oracle VM Template for MySQL Enterprise Edition as well as how to get started with it. As always the webinar is free but please register here. The webinar starts at 9:00 am Pacific (5:00 pm UK, 6:00 pm CET) and even if you can’t make that time register anyway and you’ll be sent a link to the charts and replay.

As a reminder, a new white paper is available that goes through some of the details – if you have time then take a look at this paper before the webinar and then get any of your questions answered. Get the white paper here.

The official description…

Virtualization is a key technology to enable data center efficiency and provides the foundation for cloud computing. Integrating MySQL Enterprise Edition with Oracle Linux, the Oracle VM Template is the fastest, easiest and most reliable way to provision virtualized MySQL instances, enabling users to meet the explosive demand for web-based services. This webinar will demonstrate how the Oracle VM Template for MySQL Enterprise Edition ensures rapid deployment and helps eliminate configuration efforts and risks by providing a pre-installed and pre-configured virtualized software image, also taking advantage of Oracle VM’s mechanisms to deliver high availability. The webinar will cover: – An overview of the technologies packaged into the template – How to configure and deploy the template – How to use, modify and save an adapted template that supports specific application requirements By attending the webinar, you will learn how the Oracle VM Template for MySQL Enterprise Edition provides the foundation for a more agile and highly available MySQL environment. This session will be approximately 1 hour in length and will include interactive Q&A throughout. Please join us for this informative webinar!