As a MySQL DBA, you like to know who is connected on the system you manage. You also like to know who is trying to connect.

In this article, we will discover how we can retrieve the information and control who is using the MySQL DB instance we launched in OCI.

Secure Connections

The first thing we can check is that all our clients encrypt their connection to the MySQL server.

We use again Performance_Schema to retrieve the relevant information:

select connection_type, substring_index(substring_index(name,"/",2),"/",-1) name,
       sbt.variable_value AS tls_version, t2.variable_value AS cipher,
       processlist_user AS user, processlist_host AS host
from performance_schema.status_by_thread AS sbt
join performance_schema.threads AS t 
  on t.thread_id = sbt.thread_id
join performance_schema.status_by_thread AS t2 
  on t2.thread_id = t.thread_id
where sbt.variable_name = 'Ssl_version' and …

For this third article of the series dedicated on how a DBA can find the info he needs with MySQL Database Service in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, we will see how we can find the error log.

When using MySQL DBAAS, the DBA doesn’t have direct access to the files on the filesystem. Hopefully, with MySQL 8.0, the error log is also available in Performance_Schema.

This is exactly where you will find the information present also in the error log file when using MDS in OCI:

select * from (select * from performance_schema.error_log order by logged desc limit 10) a order by logged\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
    LOGGED: 2023-03-19 08:41:09.950266
 THREAD_ID: 0
      PRIO: System
ERROR_CODE: MY-011323
 SUBSYSTEM: Server
      DATA: X Plugin ready for connections. Bind-address: '10.0.1.33' port: 33060, socket: /var/run/mysqld/mysqlx.sock
*************************** 2. row …

This article is the second of the new series dedicated on how a DBA can find the info he needs with MySQL Database Service in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

The first article was dedicated on Backups, this one is about Disk Space Utilization.

This time we have two options to retrieve useful information related to disk space:

1. Metrics
2. Performance_Schema

Metrics

In the OCI Web Console, there is a dedicated metric for the disk usage:

As for the backup, we can create Alarms for …

With a special focus on Percona Operator for MySQL

Overview

HAProxy, ProxySQL, MySQL Router (AKA MySQL Proxy); in the last few years, I had to answer multiple times on what proxy to use and in what scenario. When designing an architecture, many components need to be considered before deciding on the best solution.

When deciding what to pick, there are many things to consider, like where the proxy needs to be, if it “just” needs to redirect the connections, or if more features need to be in, like caching and filtering, or if it needs to be integrated with some MySQL embedded automation.

Given that, there never was a single straight answer. Instead, an analysis needs to be done. Only after a better understanding of the environment, the needs, and the evolution that the platform needs to achieve is it possible …

In this new series of articles we will explore the different sources of information available when using MySQL Database Service on OCI to effectively perform your daily DBA job.

Of course there is way less things to take care of, like backups, upgrades, operating system and hardware maintenance, …

But as a serious DBA, you want to know the status of all this and maintain some control.

Some information is available on OCI’s webconsole and some in Performance_Schema and Sys.

If you use MySQL Shell for Visual Studio Code, you have the possibility to see an overview of your server using the Performance Dashboard:

But today we will take a look at the backup, a very important responsibility of the DBA.

When you use MySQL Database Service on OCI, you can define the backup policy at the DB Instance’s creation. You can always modify it later:

In …

Let’s look at how you can run Percona databases on Kubernetes, the easy way.

Chances are that if you are using the latest Percona Monitoring and Management (PMM) version, you have seen the availability of the new Percona Database as a Service (DBaaS). If not, go and get a glimpse of the fantastic feature with our docs on DBaaS – Percona Monitoring and Management.

Now, if you like it and wanna give it a try! (Yay!), but you don’t wanna deal with Kubernetes, (nay)o worries; we have a tool for you. Introducing the Percona DBaaS Infrastructure Creator, or Percona My Database as a Service (MyDBaaS).

My Database as a Service

…

Public cloud spending is slowing down. Quarter-over-quarter growth is no longer hitting 30% gains for AWS, Google, and Microsoft. This is businesses’ response to tough and uncertain macroeconomic conditions, where organizations scrutinize their public cloud spending to optimize and adjust.

In this blog post, we will see how running databases on Kubernetes with Percona Operators can reduce your cloud bill when compared to using AWS RDS.

Inputs

These are the following instances that we will start with:

• AWS
• RDS for MySQL in us-east-1
• 10 x db.r5.4xlarge
• 200 GB storage each

The cost of RDS consists mostly of two things – compute and storage. We will not consider data transfer or backup costs in this article.

• db.r5.4xlarge – $1.92/hour or …

We are pleased to announce the general availability of Vitess 16! Documentation improvements # In this release the maintainer team has decided to put an emphasis on reviewing, editing, and rewriting the website documentation to be current with the code. With help from CNCF, we have also improved the search experience. We welcome feedback on the current incarnation of the docs. GA announcements # We are marking VDiff v2 as Generally Available or production-ready in v16.

Recently, I was working with my colleagues Edwin Wang and Taras Onishchuk and found an interesting edge case involving a situation where a replica running Percona Server for MySQL 5.7, external to AWS Aurora instance version 2.10.2 (5.7-compatible), broke. I recreated the issue in my lab with a simple create database statement, as you will see below.

Error 'Character set '#255' is not a compiled character set and is not specified in the '/usr/share/percona-server/charsets/Index.xml' file' on query. Default database: 'lab'. Query: 'create database test'

The interesting thing to note here is the character set ‘#255’. You won’t see this available if you check the list of available collations in Percona Server for MySQL 5.7 for the UTF8MB4 character set.

mysql> SHOW COLLATION WHERE Charset = 'utf8mb4' and id = 255; 
Empty set (0.01 sec)

…

Amazon instance profiles are used to pass IAM roles to an EC2 instance. This IAM role can be queried using EC2 instance metadata to access an S3 bucket. Please check Amazon’s Official Documentation for more information.

Today we are happy to announce that starting with Percona XtraBackup 8.0.31-24, xbcloud can read instance metadata and fetch credentials from an instance profile, utilizing it to authenticate against an S3 bucket. Xbcloud is a tool part of Percona XtraBackup and allows you to upload and download backups to Amazon S3 storage.

How it works

Configure your EC2 instance …