OblakSoft
MySQL
MySQL 5.6: an inside perspective
MySQL 5.6 through the eyes of a custom storage engine MySQL plugin
MySQL is famous for its pluggable storage engine architecture which allows a DBA or an application developer to choose the right engine for the task. An application uses MySQL API and is isolated from all of the low-level implementation details at the storage level. As an example, the Cloud Storage Engine (ClouSE) enables existing MySQL applications to use cloud storage such as Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Storage to store its data. The application doesn’t need to be changed or even redeployed: with ClouSE, remote cloud storage will look like a better (ultra-scalable, durable, always-on) alternative to the local storage.
As you may already know, ClouSE now supports MySQL 5.6 release series. See this announcement for more detail. Let’s go through the set of changes that were required on the ClouSE side in order to keep up with core MySQL 5.6 changes.
We had to adapt our code to compile and work with MySQL 5.6 while keeping 100% compatibility with MySQL 5.5. As much as we could, we tried to fix the code in a way that would work with both release series, but there are cases where the code has to be conditionally compiled for each release series.
Here is the list of MySQL 5.6 breaking changes and our solutions, in no particular order.
MySQL on Cloud Storage: do it yourself with one command
Cloud Storage Engine (ClouSE) installation and configuration is now fully automated. Try new ClouSE installer and you’ll have cloud storage access configured in no time.
OblakSoft is pleased to announce the release of Cloud Storage Engine (ClouSE) installer that can be used to deploy and configure ClouSE with your MySQL server. Now ClouSE can be deployed with just one command. The installer will guide the user through the configuration process, prompt for Cloud Storage connection parameters, and install ClouSE into MySQL.
Presented is a step-by-step guide for ClouSE installation and configuration, from downloading the binaries to running the installer. The guide was designed by request of WordPress-to-Cloud users, however it is fully applicable to any generic ClouSE installation.
The slides have notes, they are a little hard to discover with the SlideShare interface, look for a tab below the slide that looks like “Notes on Slide #”.
Let us know how we can further streamline cloud adoption for your MySQL applications.
OblakSoft Cloud Storage Engine Newsletter, November 2012
MySQL and WordPress welcome Google Cloud Storage
OblakSoft is pleased to announce that the Cloud Storage Engine for MySQL (ClouSE) now supports Google Cloud Storage. Using MySQL to store data directly in Google Cloud Storage becomes a simple deployment choice: pick your Google Cloud Storage bucket and migrate any or all of your tables to the cloud. We would like to thank Google storage team for their support and contributions.
This functionality opens Google Cloud Storage to millions of MySQL-based applications – cloud storage becomes a better alternative to local storage, no matter where you host the application, on premise or in the cloud. Applications can now store data on Google’s infrastructure, and enjoy high availability, high durability and high scalability of Google Cloud Storage.
MySQL BLOB meets Amazon S3: advanced Weblob features
Advanced Weblob operations help to use Weblobs most effectively.
Weblob recap
In an earlier post I introduced Weblobs. Weblob is a new data type that is supported by the Cloud Storage Engine for MySQL (ClouSE). To a database developer, a WEBLOB behaves (almost) like a regular BLOB. However, in addition to the regular BLOB functionality, Weblobs can be downloaded directly from Amazon S3 by HTTP URLs.
In MySQL, a Weblob is expressed via a pair of BLOB fields that have a special naming convention: field_name$wblob and field_name$wblob_info. The latter field is what provides the Weblob functionality. It can be used to retrieve the direct Amazon S3 URL for the BLOB content.
But why does the field_name$wblob_info field have the $wblob_info suffix and not $wblob_url suffix? Can it do more than just retrieve direct URLs? It actually can.
MySQL on S3: security and backups
I got a few questions like the ones below that I’d like to address to avoid further confusion.
How exactly secure is ClouSE for MySQL, the first secure database in the cloud? Am I protected against standard application level security attacks or even accidental admin mistakes?
With the help of ClouSE I get instantaneous backup for my database on the highly durable cloud storage. But how would I protect my data in case a malicious attack or an accident did occur?
Re: security
I’ve got a comment pointing out that data encryption on the storage level doesn’t protect from SQL injections. Of course, data encryption does not protect from SQL injections (as long as there is SQL involved, there will be a risk of a SQL injection). Neither does it protect from the infinite number of attack vectors that can happen at any layer of the application stack: PHP, Apache, MySQL, Linux, application code, application users, etc.
MySQL with ClouSE is the first Secure Database in the Cloud
Want to learn how you can store your sensitive data in the cloud storage? Take a look at the thorough and honest security analysis of the approach you can take to deploy your existing MySQL workloads to cloud.
keep reading in August issue of Hackin9 security magazine.
