Where Would I Use MySQL Cluster?
MySQL
Cluster has long been used in telecommunications network services for
Subscriber Data Management (HLR/HSS), Service Delivery Platforms and
Value-Added Services, and has also been deployed in certain parts of general
web infrastructure.
Following the announcements of MySQL
Cluster 7.2 General Availability, including new benchmarks demonstrating MySQL
Cluster delivering 1 Billion Queries per Minute, I thought it might be
worthwhile to highlight examples of use cases for MySQL Cluster .
Web-Based
Payment & Financial Services Platforms
MySQL Cluster can be deployed across a
range of applications including payment gateways, trading systems and customer
service infrastructure.
Payment
Gateways
-
These are used by merchants to
process customer payments
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The gateways need to integrate
with multiple credit and debit card systems
-
Multiple payment channels have
to be supported, i.e. ePayment, mPayment, In-store, etc.
-
MySQL Cluster can be used to
record full transaction data, including customer
& product information
-
This data is persisted for set
time periods to enable auditing and fraud detection
Web-Based
Trading Systems
-
MySQL Cluster can be deployed
to support the trading engine, persisting the details of each trade
-
MySQL Cluster also provides the
storage layer for the store–and-forward messaging system used by traders and
customers to track transactions
Customer
Service Systems
-
MySQL Cluster can be used as a command and control system, providing
telephony, web portal and call desk integration
-
Inbound calls are routed to customer services representatives and customer
account details are retrieved in real-time
-
Additional support for Integrated Voice Response systems enabling
customer self-service
Core database requirements of these
platforms include:
·
ACID compliance to support
transactional integrity
·
Rapid scale-out to support growth in merchants,
traders, customers and payment channels
·
Very high insert and update rates
·
Low, predictable latency to support real-time
trading and customer experience
·
99.999% availability to guard against both
outages and support on-line maintenance operations needed to seamlessly evolve
services (i.e. adding nodes, upgrading schema, etc.)
·
Low TCO to maximize trading margins
Session
Management and eCommerce
Providing the back-end to on-line retail
sites is an area where MySQL Cluster has a strong track record, providing the
following services:
-
Enabling a seamless experience
as users log-in, search and browse products, and then place orders.
-
Managing user accounts, storing each new user
session, updating customer profiles and maintaining shopping carts
-
Recording and tracking user
behavior to integrate with merchandizing systems, enabling real-time cross-sell
and upsell promotions
Database requirements for eCommerce include
·
ACID
compliance to support transactional integrity
·
Elastic, on-demand scale-out using
commodity hardware to support growing user and order volumes, and holiday
season peaks
·
Low, predictable latency to
support a real time user experience
·
High availability to avoid
downtime resulting in lost sales and compromised customer satisfaction
·
On-line schema changes to
support the additions of new product categories or customer profiling
attributes
Take a look at the MySQL Web Reference
Architectures for best practices in scaling highly available,
on-line retail sites
On-Line Gaming
With a huge growth in
gamers, and gaming platforms, MySQL Cluster can be used to support the core
gaming persistence layer:
-
MySQL Cluster manages user
accounts, gaming entitlements and session state (life-force, weapons, scores,
etc.), along with leaderboards, all in real time
-
Manages the eCommerce and
billing platform (for in-game purchases)
-
Command and control system
across gaming platforms, integrating multiple services with avatars and devices
Again, the core requirements of the database include:
·
Linear, on-demand scalability
of both read and write operations to support the ramp in demand when new games
gain traction
·
High availability
·
Low latency for a real-time
gaming experience
Event
Data and Content Management
Digital
Advertising and Customer Relationship Management
MySQL Cluster can be used to capture customer
campaign responses in real time
-
Campaign responses are consolidated
across multiple channels, including web, social media, SMS, and in-store
responses.
-
Data is replicated in batches
to the MySQL InnoDB storage engine for analysis and reporting
Event
Data Capture
MySQL Cluster is used to capture real-time
data feeds & metadata from environmental sensors, devices and satellites. Data is then
replicated to analysis platforms for transformation and processing
Database requirements include:
·
The ability to support high
volume insert and update rates, with zero data loss
·
Scaled-out on commodity hardware
·
Flexible
replication topologies to other database engines and across data centers
How
to Get Started
The above examples illustrate how MySQL
Cluster can be used across range of web-based services deployed on-premise or
in the cloud.
If you have workloads that have similar
demands, it’s worth taking a look at MySQL Cluster 7.2. The new MySQL
Cluster Evaluation Guide provides best practices in quickly provisioning proof-of-concepts
and benchmarking MySQL Cluster with your application.
We’d love to hear more about they types of
workloads that you think would benefit from MySQL Cluster, so please use the
comments section below and provide feedback.
