You Got NoSQL in MySQL: Memcached Plugin in MySQL Technology Preview

http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2011/04/you-got-nosql-in-mysql-memcach.php

by Anon84 • 15 years ago

36 16 15 years ago

If anyone is interested in direct access to InnoDB (without relying on Oracle who has stopped distributing it for download on their website) you can embed it directly into your applications using HailDB, which is an open source project continuing its development:

http://www.haildb.com/

gaius2• 15 years ago

It is easy to do NoSQL in any RDBMS:

  create table nosql (id number primary key, some_data clob);

Congrats! You now have a key-value store!

EvilTrout• 15 years ago

Without expiry or LRU it's no where near as useful, not to mention performant.

gaius2• 15 years ago

Sure you do, pretty much every database these days has a LRU block buffer cache.

TY• 15 years ago

Unfortunately, it's not that easy. Don't forget about the impact of SQL parsing and connection costs.

Here is a very illuminating post about it:

http://yoshinorimatsunobu.blogspot.com/2010/10/using-mysql-a...

The authors created a MySQL plugin that served as a network server and hooked into InnoDB without SQL parsing overhead. It also avoided the cost of opening/closing tables by keeping them open.

According to their benchmark, performance went from 100,000 queries per second to 750,000 per second on the same server.

Well worth the read.

EGreg2• 15 years ago

Facebook uses mysql as a key-value store. HandlerSocket is great for avoiding SQL parsing -- is it the same thing basically as ODBC?

rfugger2• 15 years ago

Anyone care to explain what this accomplishes exactly?

rfugger2• 15 years ago

Answering my own question:

http://dev.mysql.com/tech-resources/articles/whats-new-in-my...

This appears to be a way to access InnoDB storage as a memcached-type key-value store using the memcached API. I didn't get that from the article.

seldo• 15 years ago

The much-more-informative original blog post from MySQL's site, which RWW doesn't seem to link to for some reason:

http://dev.mysql.com/tech-resources/articles/nosql-to-mysql-...

What wasn't obvious to me from RWW's article is that this isn't actually memcached at all -- it's InnoDB, speaking the memcached protocol, to save having to create a whole new protocol and a bunch of new clients. Essentially, it's MySQL pretending to be memcache, but a memcache with persistence. Pretty cool!

vessenes2• 15 years ago

Thanks for the link. For some reason, this release totally bugs me! This strategy from the MySQL team is exactly the opposite of what their customers need, in my opinion.

The number of people using key-value stores because of their query semantics is dwarfed by those using them for their speed. What MySQL needs is the converse of this -- a way to lock tables / rows / query results to RAM for custom access patterns as determined by developers.

"Helping customers preserve memcache investments" is just silly -- nobody would have made memcache investments if MySQL did what I just described above.

Anyway, this should be a blog post rather than an HN comment, but, ... I'm surprised. I thought that the Oracle product managers were better than this.

riffraff• 15 years ago

but the mysql folks have already explained that accessing innodb without the overhead of SQL (both protocol and semantic) implies a huge difference in performances.

So this goes in the direction of your implied problem: faster access to data.

EGreg2• 15 years ago

It's more than that. It allows you to mix and match the SQL interface with the memcached interface. It doesn't have to be persistent actually :)

prodigal_erik• 15 years ago

Of all the key/value stores out there, why did they choose memcached to emulate? Compare-and-set doesn't cut it, you need a better API than it offers to get any benefit from InnoDB transactions. And if any value should happen to grow beyond 1 MB, some legacy memcache clients will just start blowing up.

swaits• 15 years ago

Maybe it doesn't suit your needs. If not, don't use it. But lots of folks are using memcached. Seems like a great project to me.

mcorrientes• 15 years ago

Sounds to me like MySQL is trying to keep up with mongodb.

A littte bit late but I cant wait for some benchmarks.

If they also going to implement sharding next time, they keep my primary choice for new web projects.

You Got NoSQL in MySQL: Memcached Plugin in MySQL Technology Preview

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