The Biggest MySQL Cluster, Ever?

The Biggest MySQL Cluster, Ever? 55

Posted by Cliff on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @12:29PM from the an-RDBMS-that-needs-a-diet dept.

ExcerLee asks: "Our team is going to build a MySQL (load-balancing and fail-over) cluster for the Cluster World Expo in the end of June. This cluster is going to have at least 10 nodes, and will use dual-opteron systems from Polywell Computers and SuSE Enterprise Linux for AMD64 from SuSE. While we are working on this hefty cluster, we wonder if this is the biggest MySQL cluster has ever been built. I googled with terms like 'biggest mysql cluster', but didn't find much." If you've run a MySQL cluster before, how large was it and how well did it perform? Krow: I have been told of much larger clusters then this; Slashdot DBs total 6 machines with 18 processors, and LiveJournal has one of the most complicated clusters I have ever seen set up.

The Biggest MySQL Cluster, Ever?

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Why would they think that? (Score:5, Insightful)

by Hanashi ( 93356 ) * writes: on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @12:30PM (#6058092) Homepage

IT environments are so complex today, why would anyone think only 10 of anything is "the biggest"?

- They didn't [Was: Re:Why would they think that?] (Score:2)
  
  by Mr. Sketch ( 111112 ) * writes:
  
  IT environments are so complex today, why would anyone think only 10 of anything is "the biggest"?
  
  The submitter never claimed that their cluster was the biggest, but while they were building a good sized cluster, they were just curious what the biggest one ever built was.
  - Re:They didn't [Was: Re:Why would they think that? (Score:3, Informative)
    
    by Hanashi ( 93356 ) * writes:
    
    I'm sorry, but I don't think you are correct. See the following excerpt:
    While we are working on this hefty cluster, we wonder if this is the biggest MySQL cluster has ever been built.
    They're clearly asking if theirs is the biggest ever built.
- Re:Why would they think that? (Score:3, Informative)
  
  by moosesocks ( 264553 ) writes:
  
  10 of these [sun.com] ought to be more powerful than anything else that's been built. 1060 processors, 5760gb of RAM.
  
  It would definitely be the world's largest MySQL cluster. Of course, I dobut that anybody would even WANT a cluster that big. Once you get a database that size, you would probably want to custom-tailor your own solution, or not use a traditional database at all. The only databases big enough to warrant this type of power are probably those of the government (ie. the IRS); that being said, the gove
  - Re:Why would they think that? (Score:2)
    
    by afidel ( 530433 ) writes:
    
    Actually that sounds kind of like what Walmart would want for their datamining database =) 5.7TB of ram sure would make those massive joins faster. BTW for stuff of that size I believe most people are using Terrdata's database, I know the 3 largest live databases in the world including Walmarts are all hosted using Terrdata.
  - Re:Why would they think that? (Score:2)
    
    by sql*kitten ( 1359 ) writes:
    
    10 of these ought to be more powerful than anything else that's been built. 1060 processors, 5760gb of RAM
    
    You're not even close. This [sgi.com] cluster has 48 nodes [sgi.com] with 128 processors apiece, but each node can take up to 512. Each node also has up to a terabyte of RAM.
- Re:Why would they think that? (Score:1)
  
  by ExcerLee ( 678261 ) writes:
  
  Because MySql itself doesn't support real clustering and there is any solutions that supports real cluster for MySql yet. Master/Slave data replication should not be considered as clustering. The solution we are working on supports simultaneous replication for data writes. I haven't seen anybody else had this done before.
  - Re:Why would they think that? (Score:2)
    
    by Hanashi ( 93356 ) * writes:
    
    I see. In that case, I guess the answer to your question depends on the definition of "cluster". Regardless of the definition, though, your work sounds very useful. It's even cool, which is better. 8-)
Wow! Correct use of the Cliff Comma Subject! (Score:5, Funny)

by JUSTONEMORELATTE ( 584508 ) writes: on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @12:32PM (#6058107) Homepage

Mark this day! Cliff's trademark comma actually landed in an appropriate place!
Assuming, of course, that he was trying to sound like Fat Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons.

--

- Re:Wow! Correct use of the Cliff Comma Subject! (Score:2)
  
  by babbage ( 61057 ) writes:
  
  Thus proving that even the blind can hit an occasional bullseye -- it's not accuracy, it's random luck ;-)
- Re:Wow! Correct use of the Cliff Comma Subject! (Score:1)
  
  by kulpinator ( 629554 ) writes:
  
  Though for the sentence to be entirely correct, the comma after the quote 'biggest mysql cluster' should be placed within the single quotes, IIRC...
  
  No one is perfect. :-)
  
  Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
One Question.... (Score:4, Funny)

by clonebarkins ( 470547 ) writes: on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @12:34PM (#6058127)

...what are you going to put in the db?

- Re:One Question.... (Score:4, Funny)
  
  by PerlGuru ( 115222 ) * writes: <michael@thegrebs.com> on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @12:36PM (#6058152) Homepage
  
  *everything*
  
  - Re:One Question.... (Score:4, Funny)
    
    by clonebarkins ( 470547 ) writes: on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @12:42PM (#6058204)
    
    *everything*
    
    You forgot the evil "Mwahahahahahaha" after it!
    
- Cliff's commas (Score:2)
  
  by A nonymous Coward ( 7548 ) * writes:
  
  See here [slashdot.org]
BEOWULF (Score:2, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward writes:

Imagine a BEOWULF cluster of these CLUSTERS.
Someone had to say that stupid shit. :-(
- Re:BEOWULF (Score:5, Interesting)
  
  by ciaran_o_riordan ( 662132 ) writes: on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @01:50PM (#6058913) Homepage
  
  I know you were only joking but I thought I'd mention that this is impossible.
  
  BEOWULF support has to be compiled into an application for it to be used. MySQL doesn't have BEOWULF support, and I don't see a patch for it on the web.
  
  OpenMosix performs kernel level clustering. You apply the OpenMosix patch to Linux, compile, reboot, and Linux will now migrate processes automatically to other OpenMosix enabled computers on your network.
  
  Beowulf is more efficient, but it would probably take a month or so to program MySQL to use it. OpenMosix takes about 30 minutes to set up and it then works with every application you run.
  
  I thought this was interesting.
  
  Ciaran O'Riordan
  
  - Re:BEOWULF (Score:3, Funny)
    
    by The Bungi ( 221687 ) writes:
    
    You mean something called 'Beowulf' that has something to do with clusters actually exists??
    All these years...
  - Re:BEOWULF (Score:3, Interesting)
    
    by h3 ( 27424 ) writes:
    
    OpenMosix takes about 30 minutes to set up and it then works with every application you run.
    
    Well, not *every* application. Some don't migrate, depending on I/O, threading, etc. But a lot do, and it really is easy to setup.
    
    We use it at work on a bioinformatics cluster and the best part is that it'll transparently balance user jobs without them having to do or learn anything new.
    
    Ob topic: we happen to run MySQL on one of our cluster nodes, but it doesn't migrate ;).
    
    -h3
  - Re:BEOWULF (Score:1)
    
    by steveit_is ( 650459 ) writes:
    
    OpenMosix will not migrate any process which uses shared memory unless you use the (sorry MAASK)unstable 'migshm' patch from http://mcaserta.com/maask/. MySQL uses shared memory. I tried it.
  - Re:BEOWULF (Score:1)
    
    by stonecypher ( 118140 ) writes:
    
    > I thought this was interesting
    
    Score: (5, Interesting)
    
    These are not the droids you are looking for.
    
    (Pity I posted tihs 8 days late, huh?)
- In Soviet Russia (Score:1)
  
  by buckinm ( 628185 ) writes:
  
  Beowulf imagines a cluster of YOU!
Documentation (Score:4, Insightful)

by wixu ( 261923 ) writes: on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @12:44PM (#6058231)

Are you planing to write some documentation of this work and showing it to internet?

Why powerful servers? (Score:3, Interesting)

by samjam ( 256347 ) writes: on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @12:44PM (#6058233) Homepage Journal

It would say more if you used less powerful machines and still did well.

If you show how well it can run on stock hardware (as opposed to buying more) it may impress more people.

That means 800MHz to 1GHz maybe?

Just a thought.

Sam

comic book guy sez: (Score:2)

by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) writes:

"Biggest...cluster...ever."

"There is no emoticon adequate to express what I'm feeling right now."
- Re:comic book guy sez: (Score:1)
  
  by Bingo Foo ( 179380 ) writes:
  
  You mean "evar."
livejournal? (Score:2)

by orangesquid ( 79734 ) writes:

I know LJ has a very complex system, but is it documented somewhere? I know there are several database clusters, and lots of cache servers, and several webservers and such...

Who can tell me how it all cums together?
- Re:livejournal? (Score:5, Informative)
  
  by aeinome ( 672135 ) writes: on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @01:15PM (#6058540) Journal
  
  Here's an XML file [livejournal.org] detailing all of the clusters. It's a little hard to read, but it works.
  
  - Re:livejournal? (Score:1)
    
    by Phil Ulrich ( 595587 ) writes:
    
    And yet, with all of that equipment, it's amazing how dog slow LJ really still is. Just goes to show, nothing - absolutely nothing - will keep up with intrepid, well-meaning, angsty teenage goths who want to whine about their lack of a sex life and make friend with other angsty teenage goths.
  - Re:livejournal? (Score:2)
    
    by semaj ( 172655 ) writes:
    
    There's also an article [netacc.net] floating around written by Brad Fitzpatrick (LiveJournal creator) a while ago now.
    
    If a journal site was using 6 databases in 2001, forgive me if I'm not impressed by the "Cluster World Expo" using four more, two years later.
Wow! Amazing! (Score:4, Funny)

by FroMan ( 111520 ) writes: on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @01:18PM (#6058569) Homepage Journal

That is truly amazing. Oh, not the cluster, that doesn't sound so impressive I guess. I really don't know, I don't work with clustered databases.

The truly amazing part is that the postgresql folks have not arrived yet.

- Re:Wow! Amazing! (Score:5, Funny)
  
  by cperciva ( 102828 ) writes: on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @05:40PM (#6061346) Homepage
  
  The truly amazing part is that the postgresql folks have not arrived yet.
  
  Not at all. Postgresql is a database. This story has absolutely no connection to databases.
  
  - Re:Wow! Amazing! (Score:2)
    
    by Sxooter ( 29722 ) writes:
    
    Plus, you wouldn't cluster postgresql, you'd just run it on a Sun E15k.
mobile.de (Score:3, Interesting)

by willamowius ( 193393 ) writes: on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @03:49PM (#6060186) Homepage

mobile.de [mobile.de] (German car marketplace) has over 100 MySQL database servers in their cluster and is performing very well.

I'll bet the biggest is Google... (Score:3, Informative)

by ubiquitin ( 28396 ) * writes: on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @05:51PM (#6061428) Homepage Journal

Google has clusters of 100+ CPU's, and they run MySQL. I haven't seen any public confirmation that they are clustering MySQL, but it would make a lot of sense for them to do so. They would be smart to use a relatively flat db to store all incoming search requests for analysis.

- Re:I'll bet the biggest is Google... (Score:2)
  
  by satterth ( 464480 ) writes:
  
  Do they run MySQL or Oracle [google.ca]?
  I can't find any contrete info.
  - Re:I'll bet the biggest is Google... (Score:2)
    
    by bobbozzo ( 622815 ) writes:
    
    Do they run MySQL or Oracle?
    Well, apparently both [google.ca], according to the same page you linked.
    The Oracle dev position is for corporate financials, whereas the MySQL is for Technical Web Applications, whatever that means (maybe data mining).
    They also have another position [google.ca] with MySQL experience mentioned on the same page.
    - Re:I'll bet the biggest is Google... (Score:2)
      
      by satterth ( 464480 ) writes:
      
      Yeah, i guess two jobs that require Oracle experience and two jobs that require MySQL experience doesn't really say much to what database they are using for their google data. It still could be just about anything though.
- Re:I'll bet the biggest is Google... (Score:5, Informative)
  
  by philj ( 13777 ) writes: on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @08:04PM (#6062658)
  
  How google works [computer.org]. Enjoy.
  
  - Re:I'll bet the biggest is Google... (Score:1)
    
    by CodeArt ( 540731 ) writes:
    
    Great! I want more articles about Google setup!
How does the load balancing work? (Score:2)

by tcopeland ( 32225 ) writes:

Is there one master that handles all the writes and replicates them out to slaves? And only the reads get distributed? Or is there some sort of n-way replication going on there?

Tom
- Re:How does the load balancing work? (Score:1)
  
  by teemu.s ( 677447 ) writes:
  
  I think one master who replicates the written records wont make sense - at least from the high-availability-point-of-view. If the master dies the whole database cluster would be useless or would need manual interaction (- to promote a new cluster master).
  
  multimaster replication would solve that issue ..
  - Re:How does the load balancing work? (Score:1)
    
    by tcopeland ( 32225 ) writes:
    
    > If the master dies the whole database
    > cluster would be useless
    
    Yup, that sounds reasonable.... does anyone know how the replication mentioned here works?
    
    Tom
Wow, all those CPUs! (Score:1)

by Moonwick ( 6444 ) writes:

So, um, the important question... what kind of IO are you putting into these nodes?

CPUs are great and all, but if you're sucking data through a soda straw (i.e., anything less than a good hardware RAID) those CPUs aren't going to have much to do...
- Re:Wow, all those CPUs! (Score:2)
  
  by budgenator ( 254554 ) writes:
  
  Our team is going to build a MySQL (load-balancing and fail-over) cluster for the Cluster World Expo in the end of June.
  
  I think what they are doing is more of an look we got all the pieces here. Maybe what he realy wants to know is, is this the biggest ever set up as a convention demo, not the biggest production system.
Since MySQL doesn't actually support 'clustering' (Score:1, Insightful)

by Anonymous Coward writes:

in any meaningful sense of the word, you could say the biggest MySQL cluster ever built has been... 1 machine.

You can take a flatfile text database, put it on a bunch of computers,run round-robin DNS, and label it a 'large database cluster' if you want, but I don;t think that is a very useful definition of 'cluster'

You could periodically run rsync to update the slave node's files from a single master file too, but this is routinely done with things like FTP mirrors of Linux distros. Is rpmfind.net a 'clus
- Re:Since MySQL doesn't actually support 'clusterin (Score:1)
  
  by ExcerLee ( 678261 ) writes:
  
  You made a very good point about what is a cluster, especially on what is MySql cluster. But before you confirm your closing statement, please check this out, our secret weapon - the active cluster solution from Emic Networks. (http://www.emicnetworks.com/products/products_eac _mysql.html) I believe this is the only solution available right now to build a MySql cluster.

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Why would they think that? (Score:5, Insightful)

They didn't [Was: Re:Why would they think that?] (Score:2)

Re:They didn't [Was: Re:Why would they think that? (Score:3, Informative)

Re:Why would they think that? (Score:3, Informative)

Re:Why would they think that? (Score:2)

Re:Why would they think that? (Score:2)

Re:Why would they think that? (Score:1)

Re:Why would they think that? (Score:2)

Wow! Correct use of the Cliff Comma Subject! (Score:5, Funny)

Re:Wow! Correct use of the Cliff Comma Subject! (Score:2)

Re:Wow! Correct use of the Cliff Comma Subject! (Score:1)

One Question.... (Score:4, Funny)

Re:One Question.... (Score:4, Funny)

Re:One Question.... (Score:4, Funny)

Cliff's commas (Score:2)

BEOWULF (Score:2, Funny)

Re:BEOWULF (Score:5, Interesting)

Re:BEOWULF (Score:3, Funny)

Re:BEOWULF (Score:3, Interesting)

Re:BEOWULF (Score:1)

Re:BEOWULF (Score:1)

In Soviet Russia (Score:1)

Documentation (Score:4, Insightful)

Why powerful servers? (Score:3, Interesting)

comic book guy sez: (Score:2)

Re:comic book guy sez: (Score:1)

livejournal? (Score:2)

Re:livejournal? (Score:5, Informative)

Re:livejournal? (Score:1)

Re:livejournal? (Score:2)

Wow! Amazing! (Score:4, Funny)

Re:Wow! Amazing! (Score:5, Funny)

Re:Wow! Amazing! (Score:2)

mobile.de (Score:3, Interesting)

I'll bet the biggest is Google... (Score:3, Informative)

Re:I'll bet the biggest is Google... (Score:2)

Re:I'll bet the biggest is Google... (Score:2)

Re:I'll bet the biggest is Google... (Score:2)

Re:I'll bet the biggest is Google... (Score:5, Informative)

Re:I'll bet the biggest is Google... (Score:1)

How does the load balancing work? (Score:2)

Re:How does the load balancing work? (Score:1)

Re:How does the load balancing work? (Score:1)

Wow, all those CPUs! (Score:1)

Re:Wow, all those CPUs! (Score:2)

Since MySQL doesn't actually support 'clustering' (Score:1, Insightful)

Re:Since MySQL doesn't actually support 'clusterin (Score:1)

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