Ivan's Blog

In case you are wondering, no, nobody in the family is expecting another baby…

I thought I had to start the post with this picture. Today I feel a bit like the day I went to the hospital for a pregnancy scan. As you may expect, seeing the baby moving was incredibly emotional, and I can feel some similar emotions with this announcement.

Many of you already know that today SkySQL has announced and will release the very first version of our very first product, the SkySQL Cloud Data Suite. Before I enter into more details about the product, let me add a couple of points.

First of all, this is still a Beta version of the product - it is the scan of a baby, not his/her birth. From here though, you can see all the bits and pieces the product has. You can configure it, test it and deploy it in EC2 and we really, really welcome all your comments, opinions, suggestions. We want to make the product right for as many users as possible and we really welcome your collaboration. This is the main reason why our code inside the product is fully open source: you can look at it, and please give us feedback.

I also want to reiterate how special this product is. I have worked on many software products in the past. I have designed, coded, engineered and led team that created many products. I will never forget the enormous number hours spent on an ERP system designed for publishing companies that I have created and coded in the early 90s. Certainly, I cannot forget the first time that the broadcast platform that I designed reached the [at that time] incredible number of 1M personalised messages for a single event - that was back in 2000, every company thought they had to own and provide some sort of personalised content for free - something that later became "social" and made more sense… 

What is really special this time is that we are touching a very, very unexplored ground. There are already companies active as database providers in the Cloud but, in my opinion, nobody has yet adopted an enterprise approach to some of the most common problems that affect the deployments of a DB platform in private and public clouds.

SkySQL Cloud Data Suite is part of a bigger project that we have simply called SkySQL Data Suite. If you check the SkySQL website, you will notice a clear differentiation between the SkySQL Cloud Data Suite and other options. In simple terms, the first version of the product allows the user to configure, deploy, administer and monitor MySQL databases in Amazon EC2.

Users can visit config.skysql.com - the same site that was previously used to configure the SkySQL Reference Architecture - to start the configuration process. They have the option to use a simplified or a more advanced configuration. The latter provides more control of the parameter that will be set in the MariaDB databases that will be deployed.

The deployment consists of one or more MariaDB servers, depending on the selections made. For example, if a user requires maximum availability for critical applications, the configurator will prepare a cluster of nodes connected with semi-synchronous replication and with multi-regional asynchronous replication.

The user can also decide how the cluster will be deployed in EC2. The simplest option is to generate the cluster directly from config.skysql.com by using the access keys provided by AWS. We are fully aware of the security aspects associated to this option and we reassure that no keys will be stored at SkySQL, they will be destroyed immediately after the deployment of the configuration.

If users are uncomfortable with the first way to deploy the cluster, they can use two alternative ways to deploy. The first one is to start an instance in EC2 and pull the configuration from the SkySQL servers. The second one requires manual operations from the System Administrator, SkySQL will simply send an email with all the necessary steps to create the Cluster required.

We have made public an AMI that is used to create the nodes of the Cluster. The AMI is loaded with MariaDB, our Administration Console, the probes used to interact with the various nodes, the agents used to provide full high availability of the system and with an Enterprise Monitor, i.e. MONyog. Everything except the monitoring tool is provided with GPL license and it is free to use. The monitoring tool is fully functional for a month through a commercial trial license.

We have set up a forum that will specifically address topics around the SkySQL Data Suite and we have now a bug system. You can search and post messages in the forum, browse for and file bugs in the bug system. And again - every feedback will be very helpful.

We are fully aware that the product is still in an early beta and if you plan to use it in product we strongly recommend to contact SkySQL.

We will update the AMI on a regular basis and we will provide patches for the existing installation from our website. So it will be your choice whether you may decide to update an existing cluster or create a new cluster and import data in there. We will notify users about patches, bug fixes and new versions, unless users will opt out of the notification. 

And there is more, much more to come. Just stay tuned!