Re: Database cluster?

> > > The proxy monitors and forwards the requests from the clients to the
> > > database servers. If it is a read-only request the query is forwarded
to
> > > the databaseserver currently experiencing the lowest load/most free
> > > memory, otherwise it is sent to all database servers.
> >
> > Surely, you have to send off a query to all servers that the specific
> > tables you are searching are split across. How are you handling
splitting
> > of the data?
>
> I'm not ;)

That's what I thought you were implying...

> All the database servers of the clusters simply each contain
> a copy of all the data. I know this isn't an optimal solution, but this
> project is only running for a very short period (around 2 months)

It's actually a rather fair compromise, given the time scale (IMHO). It's
like mirroring disks with RAID. You get same write performance, but
multiply the read performance for multiple disks. It sounds like you're
doing the same thing with databases.

And as your application is web search engine, this should work quite well,
especially under heavy load / lots of hits.

> > > read-only queries, such as search engines and so on.
> >
> > This implies lots of servers with identical data on them. Am I right?
> >
> > Could you tell us a bit more about your project (if it's not breaching
any
> > non-disclosure agreements, that is)? It could be a good starting point
for
> > what we are talking about implementing.
>
> There is no nda's involved in this project. We are planning on releasing
> the software under GPL after the deadline (22th of December).

Hmm... I'll be looking forward to having a look at that. Could you post us
a URL, once it is released? Are you intending to continue development of
this? I'm just thinking about how well this approach would work with
something like what Valter has suggested here recently...

Regards.

Gordan