Not able to afford Oracle RAC - Scale out low end / cost DB with Open Source Technology Stack - Tungsten

Open-source middleware maker released a database scale-out stack called Tungsten, which support open-source databases like MySQL as well as proprietary ones from the likes of Oracle.

The stack's capabilities include a failure protection function that keeps extra database replicas in the event the master fails, and can automatically promote a slave to master status when needed. It also enables users to maintain and replicate database copies at a number of locations to aid disaster recovery.

Scale-out works by spreading data across multiple, independent database servers connected through a network. The model offers an incremental approach to solving the following database problems:

* Preventing data loss though up-to-date replica databases and coordinated backups
* Increasing overall application availability by providing rapid database failover
* Raising performance and through-put by dispatching read traffic to replicas
* Integrating data between heterogenous systems, for example to support scaling of commercial databases using low-cost open source databases.

Scale-out implementation involves a number of complexities, including creating and maintaining replicas, managing resources spread across many hosts, and working around important problems such as maintaining data consistency when databases are spread over multiple hosts.

Tungsten offers a set of components that address these problems in a systematic way.

Tungsten Replicator
Implements database-neutral, master/slave replication.

Tungsten Manager
Group-communication based framework for managing cluster resources.

Tungsten Connector
A proxy for MySQL and PostgreSQL client programs. The Connector serves as a "front door" to clustering logic implemented in JDBC drivers.

Tungsten SQL-Router
A JDBC wrapper that adds high-performance and transparent failover, load-balancing, and partitioning to native JDBC drivers.

Tungsten Monitor
A pluggable monitoring service that checks and broadcasts state of individual resources in the cluster.

Tungsten claimed it isn't trying to supplant high-end Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC), but instead hopes to provide a potential incremental scale-out offering for customers using low-end databases and hardware that either can't afford or don't want to buy into the whole Oracle RAC architecture.

However, it did provide an alternative low end / cost open source RAC solution for potential Oracle RAC customer and attract some eyeballs over.

Some reflection is What if oracle or its well known competitor come out & buy over similar technology to bridge & guide the smooth transition from low end to high end. Who will be the winner in this arena?

Further readings:

What Is Tungsten

The Scale-Out Blog