Tag: MariaDB

  • Load Testing MariaDB Through MaxScale: Using Sysbench

    Kester Riley walks through how to use Sysbench to load-test a MariaDB cluster through MaxScale. He explains how to prepare a test database, run OLTP workloads via MaxScale, and interpret the results — offering a practical, hands-on approach for benchmarking.

  • MaxScale Multiplexing and Caching – Part 8

    Riley closes the series by summarizing the essential principles for building a high-concurrency MariaDB architecture with MaxScale. The author distills the practical lessons from all previous parts into clear, actionable guidance, covering thread tuning, backend sizing, multiplexing safety, caching strategy, and how to balance performance with correctness.

  • MaxScale Multiplexing and Caching – Part 7

    In one of the most important parts of the series, the author highlights situations where multiplexing or caching can produce incorrect results or degrade performance. Kester Riley outlines common session-dependent patterns, subtle edge cases, and operational risks that engineers must understand before enabling MaxScale’s most powerful features.

  • MaxScale Multiplexing and Caching – Part 3

    Kester Riley continues by breaking down how MaxScale manages backend connections and why understanding the relationship between threads, connection pools, and database capacity is essential. The author provides practical formulas and real-world sizing guidance to help ensure stable performance under demanding workloads.

  • MaxScale Multiplexing and Caching – Part 1

    Kester Riley opens the series by laying out the core challenge behind modern MariaDB workloads: how to handle thousands of concurrent connections without overwhelming the database. The author explains why MaxScale sits at the heart of solving this, and introduces the key themes of the series, connection multiplexing, intelligent caching, thread optimization, and real-world performance…

  • Running MariaDB on VMware: A Comprehensive Guide & Best Practices

    Virtualising MariaDB on VMware vSphere / ESXi unlocks major benefits — like scalable provisioning, high availability, and more efficient hardware utilization. But without careful tuning, databases can suffer from latency, I/O bottlenecks, and resource contention. In this guide, Kester Riley outlines a holistic approach to building MariaDB VMs for performance and reliability.

  • MariaDB Upgrade – Using the Diff Router – Part 5

    Part 5  –  Visualising the results This multipart series breaks down each section into easy logical steps. Once you have completed the process and stopped the comparison, you will want to actually look at the results. The amazing MaxScale team have thought of this as well and provide a tool to look at the results…

  • MariaDB Upgrade – Using the Diff Router – Part 4

    Part 4  –  Using the Diff Router This multipart series breaks down each section into easy logical steps. Now that you have the Diff Router ready to be used, we need to have a load on our system, the idea is that this is your standard production load, however, for the purposes of this blog…

  • MariaDB Upgrade – Using the Diff Router – Part 3

    MariaDB Diff‑Router Upgrade: Configuration – Part 3 In Part 3 of the series, learn how to configure MaxScale’s Diff Router to compare your legacy and upgraded MariaDB servers efficiently. This installment covers: MaxScale service adjustments: editing [service], [listener], and [router] sections to support diff routing. Server definitions: adding both the old (main) and new (other) MariaDB servers…

  • MariaDB Upgrade – Using the Diff Router – Part 2

    MariaDB Diff‑Router Upgrade: In‑Depth Part 2 Dive deeper into seamless MariaDB upgrades with Part 2 of using the Diff‑router. Learn how to: Execute comprehensive comparisons between main and upgraded servers using latency histograms, EXPLAIN diagnostics, QPS monitoring, and checksum validation. Prepare directory-based reporting, visualize results via maxvisualize, and continuously log discrepancies. Manage Diff lifecycle with create, start,…