Tungsten University

Tungsten Clustering is a powerful tool with many moving parts, including the Tungsten Connectors which may be installed on any application server. During a troubleshooting event, it is helpful to understand what to look for and where, in addition to understanding how the logs work together to provide a clear picture of the situation. In Tungsten version 7, we introduced a number of features designed to make troubleshooting easier, and this blog will cover some of that too.

Tungsten Clustering allows for many types of maintenance to happen with no downtime at all. This blog post will explore how to upgrade the actual MySQL Server on all cluster nodes with zero downtime.

This blog post will walk you through configuring HA Proxy for the Tungsten Dashboard, along with the new command `tpm generate-haproxy-for-api` which helps automate the process by translating existing INI files into haproxy.cfg config file format. The Tungsten Dashboard is a browser-based GUI, designed to make using a Tungsten Cluster as easy as possible.

Transaction History Log (THL) files are the core of Tungsten Replication, containing the actual MySQL write events that are replicated to the replicas. These files can take up considerable amounts of disk space, making them of interest for housekeeping operations to limit the consumption and ultimately, the cost. This blog post will walk you through THL management, along with the new command `tpm purge-thl` which helps automate the process when THL needs to be removed prior to the automatic rotation window.

Performance tuning any system provides more speed for the same hardware spend, gives the end-user a better, faster experience and typically reduces the stress on staff all around. Security tuning locks down critical data to prevent unauthorized access. Today we will explore both the security and performance enhancements available for the Tungsten Replicator THL sub-system as of version 7.x.

Sometimes you really, really want to know what a MySQL client is asking of the MySQL server. As of Tungsten Clustering v7.0.0, you may now enable Connector Audit Logging, which captures data transferred between client applications and MySQL servers to a file, database or socket. This blog post will walk you through the feature and how to enable, configure and disable Tungsten Connector Audit Logging.

In this post we will explore a new command in v7.0.1, tpm report. The purpose of tpm report is to provide easy access to all of the settings that pertain to a specific topic. Since Security is a high priority at Continuent, the current default (and only) topic is the Security stance. The tpm report command will evolve and grow over time. This first version is Continuent’s way of providing as much transparency about Tungsten Cluster Security as possible.

In our last blog post on this topic we covered the basics of the new REST  API available with Tungsten version 7.0.0. In this post, Part 2, we explore the REST API in more detail, including payloads and advanced functionality. The API provides a vast pool of capabilities, and here we barely scratch the surface of what can be accomplished.

In this short post we will highlight the key differences between Multi-Site Active/Active (MSAA) and Composite Active/Active (CAA) topologies. The core principle behind an active/active topology is that you have more than one writable cluster. So why do we have more than one type of Active/Active topology?

So we’ve established how important backups are, RTO, RPO, and how you can be a hero by having backups that align with business objectives. We just need to pick a good backup tool(s) to take backups of your MySQL database. Databases evolve, grow, and business needs change. That’s why it is important to constantly reevaluate your backup strategy, because what worked last year may not be appropriate this year in terms of RPO/RTO, retention, or costs.

As system administrators, we are called upon to be responsible for a vast quantity of discrete subsystems, each with its own set of operating rules. When starting and stopping any subsystem, it is the best practice to do so gracefully whenever possible to ensure data integrity. In this blog post, we detail the best practices for stopping and starting a Tungsten Cluster.

Recently, a Continuent customer asked: “What is your approach for scaling up MySQL clusters for a higher number of queries per second and larger data sets?” Scaling, like availability, is a multifaceted question. In this blog post we will detail and discuss the best practices for scaling Tungsten Clusters.