MySQL Cluster Architecture

Introduction:

MySQL Cluster is a write-scalable, real-time, ACID-compliant transactional database, combining 99.999% availability with the low TCO of open source. Designed around a distributed, multi-master architecture with no single point of failure, MySQL Cluster scales horizontally on commodity hardware to serve read and write intensive workloads, accessed via SQL and NoSQL interfaces.

MySQL Cluster's real-time design delivers predictable, millisecond response times with the ability to service millions of operations per second. Support for in-memory and disk-based data, automatic data partitioning (sharding) with load balancing and the ability to add nodes to a running cluster with zero downtime allows linear database scalability to handle the most unpredictable web-based workloads.

 MySQL Cluster comprises three types of node which collectively provide service to the application:

   

• Data nodes manage the storage and access to data.  Tables are automatically sharded across the data nodes which also transparently handle load balancing, replication, failover and self-healing.

• Application nodes provide connectivity from the application logic to the data nodes. Multiple APIs are presented to the application.  MySQL provides a standard SQL interface, including connectivity to all of the leading web development languages and frameworks. There are also a whole range of NoSQL inerfaces including memcached, REST/JSON, C++ (NDB-API), Java, JPA and LDAP.

• Management nodes are used to configure the cluster and provide arbitration in the event of a network partition.

 Source: http://www.mysql.com/products/cluster/architecture.html