A variety of MySQL as a service solutions exist – some are fully managed and others simply act as host infrastructure – with shades of grey in between. There are also suppliers such as ScaleDB who provide MySQL technology for very high performance and scalability in a cloud environment. Here is a list of 8 such DBaaS providers.
Amazon RDS makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale MySQL deployments in the cloud. It automatically patches the database software and backs up a database, storing the backups for a user-defined retention period and enabling point-in-time recovery. Users benefit from the flexibility of being able to scale the compute resources or storage capacity associated with a Database Instance (DB Instance) via a single API call. Amazon RDS for MySQL DB Instances can be provisioned with General Purpose (SSD) storage, Provisioned IOPS (SSD) storage, or magnetic storage. Provisioned IOPS (SSD) is a high performance storage option designed to deliver fast, predictable, and consistent performance for I/O intensive transactional database workloads. Users can provision from 1,000 IOPS to 30,000 IOPS per DB Instance. (Maximum realized IOPS may be lower.) General Purpose (SSD) storage delivers a consistent baseline of 3 IOPS per provisioned GB and provides the ability to burst up to 3,000 IOPS. Magnetic storage (formerly known as RDS Standard storage) may be used for small database workloads where data is accessed less frequently.
ClearDB is a reliable, fault tolerant database-as-a-service for MySQL powered applications. ClearDB creates multi-master and multi-master with multi-replica MySQL configurations in regions that are important to a user to provide applications with a fully redundant solution that can survive outages, network failures and even natural disasters. Users choose how much computing power and storage they need, then ClearDB set it all up so that users have a secure and reliable MySQL database that best serves their needs. Under the hood, ClearDB uses a combination of advanced replication techniques, advanced cluster technology, and layered web services to provide customers with a MySQL database that is “smarter” than usual. They also use things like mixed binary replication logging and auto-increment offset seeding so that users can continue using MySQL’s non-deterministic and time-based functions such as UUID(), NOW() as well as auto-increment keys in tables. Communication between clients and database nodes may be encrypted using 256-bit SSL encryption, signed by both server and client certificates.
CumuLogic SQL Database-as-Service is a software platform that provides users with a fully managed instance of MySQL and Percona XtraDB database servers on premises, on any Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud or VM pool. CumuLogic’s DBaaS platform gives full access to the functionality of MySQL – one of the most commonly used SQL database servers. CumuLogic’s unique SQL DBaaS platform allows users to manage a SQL database from either CumuLogic User Interface, command line tools, or RESTful API.
CumuLogic’s SQL DBaaS platform automates provisioning, configuration, performance optimization, management, failover, backups, updates and patching, and security and access control.
Google Cloud SQL provides a fully managed MySQL database. It handles replication, patch management and database management, with instances available up to 16GB RAM, 100GB storage. Standard connections and tools such as mysqldump, MySQL Wire Protocol, and JDBC make it easier to migrate onto (or off!) Google Cloud Platform, and avoids lock-in. Data is replicated in many geographic locations as standard, and failover between them is handled automatically. Backups are also managed.
HP Cloud Relational Database automates administration tasks such as deployment, configuration, and patching. It uses an open source distribution of MySQL built on OpenStack technology. (In public beta at the time of writing).
Percona provides Percona XtraDB Cluster as a click-to-deploy solution on the Google Cloud Platform. The solution makes it simple and easy to set up and configure a multi-master MySQL cluster on Google Compute Engine. Google Cloud Platform is the latest MySQL database-as-a-service (DBaaS) provider to adopt Percona open source software. Other notable DBaaS users of Percona open source software include Rackspace Cloud Databases (link is external) and HP Cloud Platform Services. Percona XtraDB Cluster is also widely adopted for OpenStack deployments and is certified for the Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHEL OSP) and is included in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, the two leading Linux platforms for OpenStack. Companies can test the click-to-deploy Percona XtraDB Cluster solution on Google Compute Engine for free using the Google Cloud free trial. Percona XtraDB Cluster combines Percona Server, an advanced, open source drop-in replacement for MySQL, with Galera replication software. The click-to-deploy option on Google Compute Engine enables developers to launch a preconfigured and ready-to-use multi-master MySQL cluster with just a few mouse clicks, while obtaining a number of performance, scalability and diagnostic improvements compared to MySQL® Community Edition. Percona software is open source and compatible with existing MySQL environments.
Quarterdeck from Anchor is a fully managed MySQL database service. The platform is elastic, master only, high availability database cluster, that is fully managed. Quarterdeck includes redundant storage with built-in data replication to protect data against hardware failures. The database can tolerate failures in networks, hardware, and software, and multiple backups run throughout the day and night. Quarterdeck is backed by 10GB redundant networking and 10k RPM, 26 spindle, RAID 10 SAS disk arrays – with PCIe based SSD arrays optionally available for fast performance.
Rackspace really knows MySQL and was the first certified hosting partner. MySQL support for Rackspace customers includes installation, configuration assistance, troubleshooting assistance, an optional database backup agent, and consulting services. More advanced services are available if required.