MySQL on Rackspace – Scalable, Highly Available and Simple!

Xeround simplifies the managing of your Rackspace MySQL database – making it easy to ensure scalability and high-availability of your DB on the Rackspace cloud.

Xeround’s range of features, unmatched by any other database solution, make it the only truly elastic MySQL database-as-a-service available on Rackspace.

Rackspace MySQL vs. Xeround Cloud Database Comparison

Rackspace recently announced a cloud database for MySQL based on Openstack (previously code named ‘RedDwarf’). Unlike Xeround, Rackspace’s solution does not offer automatic scalability or high availability, no automatic backups, and it currently has other operational limitations (such as not being able to create a DB or users programatically via DBL.)

Check out our feature comparison and performance benchmark results below.

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Feature Comparison:

Feature / Function	Xeround Cloud DBaaS	Rackspace MySQL Cloud
MySQL Compatibility
		Partial (Can’t create databases via ddl, can’t create users.)
Scalability
Linear Out / In (?)		Scale up to 4GB Memory and 50GB storage – with downtime.
The throughput and size of Xeround cloud database can scale out – and in – linearly, for BOTH read/write.
Elastic (?)
Xeround’s cloud database can grow and shrink based on load, with no downtime and without any changes required in the application.
Auto Scale (?)	(Up, Down, Out, In)
Xeround’s cloud database offers automatic throughput elasticity – where the database throughput is able to grow and shrink based on load with no downtime or the application being aware of the process.
Application Transparency (?)
Xeround’s cloud database allows for complete Application Transparency – where no code changes are required to support scaling. In Rackspace’s case, when scaling, the application is responsible for distributing the load between the read replicas, and the master. This requires some sort of load balancing framework to be put in place in the code.
Clustering
Clustering Model (?)	Symmetric* (No Masters / Slaves – All Masters)
Symmetric Clustering Model means all nodes are equal. Records are spread equally between the servers, and replicated. All replicas are master records.
Write / Update Conflicts (?)	No Conflicts
When the same data is updated on multiple nodes, and synchronization between servers is asynchronous, there is a conflict, which cannot be easily resolved. This violates the ACID properties.
Read Concurrency (?)		Yes for Master; Latency for Replicas
When using asynchronous replication, there is always some latency between the operation executed on the master to the operation being reflected on the replica. This creates some inconsistency for read on the replica (ACID Violation).
Availability and Recovery
Self-healing (?)
Xeround cloud database can automatically identify and isolate failures and heal itself from a server failure without the application needing to be aware of the failure.
Failover (?)
Xeround cloud database is distributed and maintains multiple replicas of the data. Therefore, in case of failure, be it network, hardware or software, the database continues to work with its existing resources. In parallel, new resources are allocated to ensure full productivity.
Distribution
Multi-zone (?)
Xeround database can be distributed on multiple availability zones providing both lower latency per zone as well as survive failures of an entire zone. A release supporting multi-zone is scheduled to go live soon.
DBaaS & Web Management Console (?)
		Limited
Xeround cloud database is available as a service, with management console, automatic provisioning and configuration.
Pay-Per-Use (?)
Xeround charges by actual use. Your database automatically scales out when you need to and shrinks back when you don’t- so you only pay for what you use, with no need for overprovisioning, subscribing to larger instances only to ensure service in sporadic peak performance times.

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Performance Comparison: Benchmark Results

For this Benchmark we used Rackspace’s largest instance size (4GB memory and 50GB disk size).

(Wondering how we’re doing compared to Amazon RDS? Check out the RDS benchmark results)

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Conclusions

Xeround’s MySQL cloud database offers a leap forward compared to “old school” database technology, offering significantly better handling of large numbers of concurrent users, and very stable performance and latency under high loads.

Xeround’s robust Cloud Database offers features not supported by other database solutions, including:

• Auto-Scaling: Xeround’s revolutionary auto-scaling feature automatically scales your Rackspace MySQL database across multiple nodes when additional capacity or throughput is needed, and shrinks it back down when resources are underutilized.

  Xeround is the only cloud database that provides unlimited linear scalability for both database throughput and size, with no downtime. Auto-scaling is performed in a way that is completely transparent: no code changes are required to your application and there is no need for architectural or code scaling considerations (memcached, sharding etc.)

• High availability: Our unique replicated, self-healing architecture ensures high availability and full resiliency of your Rackspace MySQL database in the event of failure or schema changes.

  Xeround has no single point of failure – our patented technology utilizes virtual partitions that hold a configurable number of replicas. If a cloud server fails, the surviving replicas maintain the service, replacement cloud resources are consequently allocated and your data is synchronized.

  These built-in replicas and self-healing mechanism are all automated and require no configuration or management on your part.

• Zero Management – ensure scalability and high availability with 1-click!
• Full MySQL compatibility: no code changes are required for porting your existing apps.
• Automatic Backups, SSL support
• …and much more.

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See how SIMPLE Xeround is:

Watch the Product Tour:

Create Your Free Cloud Database for MySQL on Rackspace Today!