MySQL Crash Course Presentation

In the last few weeks I lectured a MySQL crash course. The course topics covered almost all what is needed to make an initial ramp up when you get into MySQL: ERD, DDL, DML, installation, security, scaling, backup, Schema design, tuning, master slave and more...

The good news
I got a very good feedback from the students, so I decided to share with you the presentation itself:

MySQL crash course by moshe kaplan from Moshe Kaplan

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Moshe Kaplan

How to use rsync for high availability environments?

What if...

• What if I have a large number of web servers and I need to deploy the same code on all of them?
• What if  I would like to enable high availability and redundancy for static user content such as images?
• What if I want to to backup files to a central storage?

A Swiss knife for static content replication
rsync was considered for a long time as the best solution for static content and code replication  in environments that consist of large number of servers.

rsync has a simple protocol that replicates a directory (one or more) on a single server to other servers. This can be achieved in two different methods (like SCP that it is based on):

• Push from the master to the slave: rsync [OPTION] … SRC [SRC] … [USER@]

  HOST:DEST
  
  

• Pull from the server by the slave: rsync [OPTION] … [USER@]HOST:SRC [DEST]

Can I perform a change on the destination directory?
Please note that the rsync protocol analyzes differences between two directories, and therefore probably will not match cases when you want to change the content of the destination directory.

How should I authenticate?
Use one of the two options:

1. Static user/pwd using sshpass for non interactive SSH based authentication.
2. PKI authentication using on-the-fly keys generation or pre-generated keys

Master-Master replication

Like in MySQL, Master-Master replication can be achieved by a dual Master-Slave connections setup . Please consider to enable only one of these connections. Then, during a failover, disable the replication. Last, when you bring the master server back enable the other replication.

Note: you may consider using OpenStack Storage for these purposes as well, as it provides an out the box solution for high availability and redundancy that easily supports multi master out of the box

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Moshe Kaplan

How Amazon SES Mailbox Simulator Makes Your System Better?

Amazon latest feature, Amazon SES Mailbox Simulator, is great!

With this feature you can email to simulator addresses. Each address triggers a specific type of behavior such as: a successful acceptance, hard bounce, "out of office" auto responder or complaints.

Why am I so excited from a feature that actually generates no direct business value to the end user?

At dSero, the Anti AdBlock Creators, we invest a lot in providing a high quality anti AdBlock solution to our clients in no time.

You can do that, only if you totally automate your software development and even more important: your quality processes.

Bottom Line

More automation and better coding enables you providing great product to your users in a better quality and lower cost.

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Moshe Kaplan

How to Scale WordPress?

WordPress is so easy to install. Just 5 minutes and you have a working site...

But what happens when traffic increases and page-views soar?

That was the main subject of the presentation I had at WP TLV (The Israeli WordPress Community) first event. The event was hosted by Google and organized by dSero: The Anti Ad Block Creators (disclaimer: I'm a major stake holder of this firm).

The answer can be found in the attached presentation:

WordPress Performance from dsero

Bottom Line
WordPress fits small sites and large sites. You just need to make the proper architecture decisions and WordPress will scale to your needs.

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Moshe Kaplan

Who takes care of non Sharded tables in Sharding?

The Challenge
As you may remember, Sharding is about splitting a database according to a key. Usually it is according to user id, client id or a phone number.
One of the major questions when we implement Sharding is what to do with data dictionary tables? The data dictionary tables are those tables that include static data that is being used by all shards.

The Options
In general there are two options:

1. Have a single copy of the data dictionary tables and ask the application to take care of the complex queries.
2. Have multiple copies of the same table and create a data distribution solution that will update all of these table copies.

Data Dictionary/Static Tables Sharidng Solution

The Elegant Solution
Create a new database that will serve as a master to all shards.
This database will include all data dictionary tables, and will serve as the single write instance for all data dictionary tables.
Once a record will be updated at one of these data dictionary tables, it will instantly be replicated to the all of the shards and will be available.

Bottom Line
Sharding may seem hard, that with simple and elegant solutions you can achieve your own scale-able solution.

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Moshe Kaplan

MySQL Optimization and Scheduled Maintenance

Once in a while it is worth to take care of your database and verify it can provide the needed resources for your system.
After all, most of the data may be store in it...


Some Tasks I would Recommend You to Do
Please notice that this work may not be done manually, but can be automated. If you do so, you may be contribute it back to the community at your favorite open source project:

1. Run MySQLTuner and look for issues.
2. Take care of fragmented tables:
1. You can find them using SHOW TABLE STATUS WHERE Data_free > 0\G and take care of them using OPTIMIZE TABLE table_name; 
2. Or you can use mysqlfragfinder script for that.
3. Verify RAM, disk and CPU utilization
4. Check the slow log query

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Moshe Kaplan

What is the Best File System for MySQL?

Well the answer it depends.
Not sure? take a look at this Q&A at ServerFault

Keep Performing,
Moshe Kaplan