

Ask HN: What is the best EC2 database solution? - quellhorst

If you are hosting with EC2 what do you use for your database? What happens when your primary dies? What do you do when the largest EC2 instance isn't big enough for your primary?
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lsc
have you looked at the ndb backend for MySQL cluster? it seems like it would
do what you need (that is, you can add nodes, in pairs to scale, and it can
handle single-node failures)

another option, I guess, is to get a large dedicated server elsewhere, and use
that as the db server; of course, you have latency issues then.

~~~
quellhorst
Yes, I do have a huge server in Texas that could be the DB server but I hope
to have some low latency cloud based solution.

I haven't looked at NDB + Mysql cluster. Is mysql cluster a free download?

~~~
lsc
MySQL is free. Last time I used the NDB cluster was probably more than 3 years
ago, when MySQL 5 was in beta. At that time, it was a pure in-memory database-
the idea is that you had to have at least twice as much ram as data, and you
would add nodes in pairs. all data would be mirrored on at least two nodes,
and you could add more nodes to get more data.

From what I understand, MySQL cluster now lets you keep some data on disk.

Also consider, just from a cost perspective, anything that you leave on all
the time that can use more than 8-16GB ram? you are much better buying and co-
locating your hardware. (And this is coming from a guy who rents VPSs. they
are a great deal if you need something small or temporary; but EC2 prices are
pretty close to 2005 levels; hardware has gotten a lot cheaper since then.)

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dmaclay
Mount elastic blocks to hold your db directories and take regular incremental
snapshots.

