Learning MySQL, 2nd Edition

Chapter 14. MySQL in the Cloud

“No need to worry, it’s in the cloud” is a phrase we often hear. It reminds us of a story about a woman who was worried that, after her iPhone drowned in the toilet, she’d lost all her years’ worth of family and travel photos. To her surprise, when she bought a new phone, the device “recovered” all the photos. She was using the iCloud backup solution from Apple to back up her device content to the cloud. (The other surprise may have been the service subscription bill she hadn’t realized she was paying.)

As computer engineers, we don’t have the luxury of taking risks with regard to whether our data will be recovered or not. Cloud storage is a scalable and reliable solution. In this chapter, we will look at a few options that companies have for using MySQL in the cloud. These range from database-as-a-service (DBaaS) options that are easily scalable and provide automatic backup and high availability features to more traditional choices like EC2 instances, which provide more fine-grained control. In general, startup companies, where the core business is not technology, prefer to use DBaaS options since they are easier to implement and work with. On the other hand, companies that need more strict control over their data might prefer to use an EC2 instance or their own cloud infrastructure.

Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS)

DBaaS is an outsourcing option where companies pay a cloud provider to launch and maintain a cloud database for them. Payment is usually ...