Flex Your Database™

How to Scale MySQL in Support of Drupal

April 3, 2013

Agenda

• How and Why database scalability impacts Drupal sites

• What are some alternatives to reduce database load?

– Are these options sufficient?

• What are some options to scale my database?

– What are the challenges?

• What is ParElastic?

– How does it help scale Drupal?

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Simplified Drupal Architecture

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Drupal 7

PHP

MySQL

(The Database)

Apache

Operating System Operating System

Anonymous users and Authenticated Users

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CDN

Varnish

Memcached

MySQL

An

on

ymo

us

Au

then

ticated

Anonymous users and Authenticated Users

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CDN

Varnish

Memcached

MySQL

An

on

ymo

us

Au

then

ticated

• The death of the anonymous user!

• Facebook as a ‘de-facto’ single sign-on

Alternatives: Reduce the database load

• Alternatives

– Content Delivery Networks (CDN’s)

• E.g., Akamai

– Web application accelerators

• E.g., Varnish

– Object caching

• E.g., Memcached

• Shortcomings

– Works for anonymous user; not as good for authenticated users

– Works for ‘read’; no good for interaction!

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CDN

Accelerator

Cache MySQL

Apache

PHP

Scaling the database tier – some options

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NoSQL NewSQL

Buy bigger and bigger servers• Easy• But very expensive• Restrictive

Sharding

• Extremely complex

• Time and resource intensive

• Fragile

• Costly to implement

NoSQL and NewSQL• Requires rewrites to

application• Non-standard• Unproven and risky

$

Implications for Drupal• Custom code• Module support

Scaling the database tier - Replication

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Client

DrupalCache

MySQL Slave

MySQL Master

MySQL Slave

reads readsreads & writes

replication replication

Implications for Drupal• Custom code• Module support

Scaling the database – summary of options

• The options presented thus far

– Replication; Reads targeted at slaves, Writes at Master

– Sharding

– Scale UP to larger hardware

– NoSQL or NewSQL databases

• All of these options are some combination of

– High Operation Cost

– High Maintenance Cost

– Non-Standard

– Increased Risk

– Delay Time to Market

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There’s another way: ParElastic

• A database virtualization product

• Zero lines of code change in your Drupal site

• Just point your site at ParElastic

• That’s all!

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Configuring Drupal with ParElastic

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How It Works

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Your Existing MySQL Database

ApplicationNative MySQL protocols

How It Works

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ParElastic

Database Virtualization Engine

Application

Multiple database servers

act as one

Off-the-Shelf MySQL Databases

(dynamic)

Elastic database processing capacity

(add and remove as needed)

Processing Storage

Add storage without

moving existing data

Native MySQL protocols

Off-the-Shelf MySQL Databases

(persistent)

Transparent partitioning,

sharding and replication

Scalability in the Application Tier

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App / PE Servers

Off the ShelfMySQL servers

Load Balancer

App App App App App App App App

ClientBrowsers

StorageProcessing

Scalability & Availability with ParElastic

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App / PE Servers

Off the ShelfMySQL servers

Load Balancer

App App App App App App App App

ClientBrowsers

StorageProcessing

Replicas

Flex Your Database™

Scales Out Your Database On Demand.

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what Drupal sees what Drupal feels

Key Features

• Adaptive provisioning

• Automated data distribution

• Scale reads AND writes

• Optimized for Drupal Multi-Site

• “Cross-Shard” operations

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Flex Your Database™

Dynamically Adds Storage and Processing. Pay Only for What You Use.

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without ParElastic:

provision for peak demand

with ParElastic:

only pay for what you use

Flex Your Database™

Use ParElastic with Drupal. No Risk or Disruption.

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without ParElastic with ParElastic

Time Spent

on Drupal

Time Spent

on Infrastructure

Benefits—ParElastic Delivers

• No Drupal modifications!

• Unprecedented flexibility

• Outstanding user experiences

• Lower operational costs

• No risk

• Faster time to market

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Deploying ParElastic is EASY!

• No Drupal modifications!

– For new sites

• Create the database with ParElastic

• Point Drupal at ParElastic

– For existing sites

• Create the database with ParElastic

• ‘mysqldump’ existing database

• Load ParElastic

• Point Drupal at ParElastic

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Performance

Performance: On Amazon AWS

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Performance: 6xCost: < 2x

MySQL (Native)• m1.xlarge• MySQL 5.5• 1TB EBS

ParElastic• 5x m1.large• MySQL 5.5• 5x 200GB EBS

Test Driver• m1.xlarge

Performance: On Amazon AWS

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Non linear degradation

Linear Scalability

25

Useful links and additional information

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Visit our website www.parelastic.com

Download our whitepaper and data sheet

www.parelastic.com/resources

View a short video about ParElastic www.parelastic.com/video

Contact us info@parelastic.com

Michael Aubin, VP Sales & Business Development

maubin@parelastic.com+1-781-832-0007

Amrith Kumar, CTO

amrith@parelastic.com

See the product in action; request a demo with Drupal

www.parelastic.com/request-demo

Sign up for a trial www.parelastic.com/apply-for-trial

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Questions and Answers