# BuyVM offloaded SQL



## NodeBytes (Jul 5, 2013)

Has anyone used BuyVM's offloaded SQL? I'm thinking about using it for a couple small project sites. Any thoughts?

Thanks.


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## drmike (Jul 5, 2013)

Yeah, MannDude uses it for vpsBoard still.

Has been alright, but some performance issues with it.   Francisco knows and is babysitting it and I think has plans to beef the server up more.

I frown about offloading MySQL, especially to a shared server with who knows who doing who knows what.  Latency in offloading is high and network stack isn't the best way to move data quickly.

But yeah, it works and BuyVM hardly charges a thing for the service.  I can't complain about that.


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## willie (Jul 5, 2013)

I haven't directly used it but have followed some of its history.  Overall I think it's a good idea, if as you say you're running some small sites and you want to minimize hassle for yourself.  A db is one of the more complex moving parts in an application stack and they tend to need attention at unpredictable and usually inconvenient times.  The other thing is that lots of db users simply aren't skilful at db operations and will tend to run very inefficient queries (usually due to lack of indexes) or other stuff that bogs down entire servers.  That's one of the reasons BuyVM charges so little for the offload: it saves them hassle caused by improperly-run user-operated db's. 

However, if you know what you're doing and don't mind having to put more attention into keeping your db running, then self-hosting gives you more control and might be preferable in some circumstances.  If your db's activity level is significant and you do run your own, then I'd suggest hosting it on pure SSD rather than HDD.  I don't think BuyVM has an SSD product at the moment, though perhaps they'll offer one someday.  Although I'm not currently running a db on it, I have a Ramnode 128MB ram, 5GB SSD vps and it's snappier than any HDD-based VPS or even local HDD server that I've ever used.  All my current machines (home and work) are SSD based.  HDD is the new magtape, used for bulk static storage but not for anything "live".

Fran if you're reading this: I suggest rebuilding your offload server on SSD if you aren't already and if the economics are at all feasible.  It makes a huge difference.


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## NodeBytes (Jul 5, 2013)

Wait, I have a ramnode vps I forgot about. I'll do it on that.


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## Francisco (Jul 5, 2013)

willie said:


> Fran if you're reading this: I suggest rebuilding your offload server on SSD if you aren't already and if the economics are at all feasible.  It makes a huge difference.


It's already in the works, as well as beefing the box out. We grew much faster than we originally had planned with the service so we're planning out how we can beef it out big time. Likely going to give it a pair of L5638's , 72GB RAM and a TB or so of SSD cache + a raid10 for raw storage.

The service works well but once in a while it requires a kick. For $1/m you're going to be hard pressed to beat the price, especially considering we don't limit diskspace 

Francisco


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## vanarp (Jul 5, 2013)

Francisco said:


> especially considering we don't limit diskspace


 

How do you identify abusers on your Offloaded MySQL? Are there some scripts to handle such?


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## MannDude (Jul 5, 2013)

Yeah, I'm using it right now as my KVM running vpsBoard with BuyVM is only boasting 256MB of RAM, so for the price it's great. Have had a few hickups here and there but Fran was quick to sort them out to speed things up. As he said, for an added $1/mo you, can't go wrong really. Easier than managing MySQL yourself.

However I will be putting the DB on a different BuyVM KVM I have soon. Just been busy. Not really because of performance issues, but for more control and to compare the two.


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## film_girl (Jul 7, 2013)

I've used it in the past and recently started using it again for the self-hosted RSS reader (Fever, www.feedafever.com) I use. Good performance, especially if you're using a lower-memory box and for $1 a month, can't beat it.

If you need more control, need to run lots of custom queries, well, obviously run the MySQL/MariaDB/Whatever stack yourself. For me, if I'm just hosting a small website or web app, I'd rather offload the database and not deal with it. TBH, most of my most recent play sessions have been with Node.js and of the NoSQL ilk, so my use cases for MySQL in general are becoming fewer and further between.

But that's me. I'm far from an expert, just a hobbyest who sometimes gets herself into trouble.


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## bdtech (Jul 13, 2013)

Francisco said:


> It's already in the works, as well as beefing the box out. We grew much faster than we originally had planned with the service so we're planning out how we can beef it out big time. Likely going to give it a pair of L5638's , 72GB RAM and a TB or so of SSD cache + a raid10 for raw storage.
> 
> 
> The service works well but once in a while it requires a kick. For $1/m you're going to be hard pressed to beat the price, especially considering we don't limit diskspace
> ...


 is a HA solution still TBD?


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## Francisco (Jul 13, 2013)

bdtech said:


> is a HA solution still TBD?


Yus.

We'll be waiting for the rebuild of the platform which will happen when it merges together with stallion 2. 

Francisco


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## bdtech (Jul 13, 2013)

Francisco said:


> Yus.
> 
> 
> We'll be waiting for the rebuild of the platform which will happen when it merges together with stallion 2.
> ...


 I'd pay $3-4 a month for HA MySQL. Separate physical hardware of course.


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## Francisco (Jul 13, 2013)

bdtech said:


> I'd pay $3-4 a month for HA MySQL. Separate physical hardware of course.


We won't bump the price.

We'll just setup a master/master replication in each location 

It's on the list of features on the way, we simply don't have enough man hours to knock it out in a weekend.

Francisco


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## NodeBytes (Jul 13, 2013)

@Franciso - Let us know when it's up! I'd love to use it once you get HA setup.


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## NodeBytes (Jul 13, 2013)

Edit: Just ordered offloaded sql services... got marked as fraud(first time ever). I'll have to wait til they manually approve.


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## MannDude (Jul 14, 2013)

bcarlsonmedia said:


> Edit: Just ordered offloaded sql services... got marked as fraud(first time ever). I'll have to wait til they manually approve.


Did you order via a VPN?

Hit them up and they'll get you sorted out, I am sure.


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## mikho (Jul 14, 2013)

I'm not sure anything would be done unless you contact them via ticket or their irc channel.


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## NodeBytes (Jul 15, 2013)

@MannDude - No, I wasn't connected at the moment.

@mikho - Opened a ticket, no response yet. :/


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## Francisco (Jul 15, 2013)

bcarlsonmedia said:


> @MannDude - No, I wasn't connected at the moment.
> 
> @mikho - Opened a ticket, no response yet. :/


What's your ticket ID? I'm guessing it's in billing?

Francisco


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## NodeBytes (Jul 15, 2013)

@Francisco

Ticket #282443

Invoice #80639


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## NodeBytes (Jul 15, 2013)

Still no answer? Oh well.


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## sv01 (Jul 15, 2013)

calm  still few hours


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## Aldryic C'boas (Jul 15, 2013)

tl;dr - I hit overtime Wednesday morning, racked up another 51 hours Wed-Fri. I took the weekend off for some much needed rest -_-;

Regular stock (and timely fraud responses) have resumed as of 06h this morning.


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## jcaleb (Jul 15, 2013)

nice to see stocks!


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## NodeBytes (Jul 15, 2013)

Thanks. It's all sorted now.


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## BlackoutIsHere (Jul 20, 2013)

Francisco said:


> master/master replication in each location


 That sounds really interesting


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## WebSearchingPro (Jul 20, 2013)

bcarlsonmedia said:


> Thanks. It's all sorted now.


Hows it been performing? Thinking about picking one up myself to use my SQL KVM for other projects.


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## NodeBytes (Jul 20, 2013)

@WebSearchingPro - very well. The latency is a little slow in Vegas from my location but I will be moving it to the Buffalo location as soon as my order is approved and I will see how that is.


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## Daniel15 (Oct 5, 2013)

Have you found any issues with performance? Offloaded SQL works for me maybe 95% of the time, but the other 5% I get queries on small tables taking much longer than they should:



And queries/connections that time out, causing sites to hang. PHP sites just get a PHP timeout and eventually eat up every available process in the FPM pool, and I get a "504 Gateway Time-out" with a Mono ASP.NET MVC site).

Originally chose the offloaded SQL since I thought performance would be better, but now I'm considering moving away from it due to the number of connection timeouts. My databases are fairly small and I've got a 1 GB VPS.


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## NodeBytes (Oct 5, 2013)

I ended up moving away from it as well. I am now using two dedicated servers and one is a dedicated database server.


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## Francisco (Oct 5, 2013)

It's known and in the works.

Most of the time it's fine but I'm guessing when users are doing major imports and such it kinda hits the fan.

There's a major upgrade coming to it this month 

It's also taking part in the SSD upgrades.


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## clarity (Oct 5, 2013)

It has been causing me fits for the past few days. PHP timeouts everywhere, and they are linked to the off-loaded SQL. It is still hard to beat for $1 though. I am probably going to get another box and throw MariaDB on it to stop those pesky users from hindering me.


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## MannDude (Oct 5, 2013)

dclardy said:


> It has been causing me fits for the past few days. PHP timeouts everywhere, and they are linked to the off-loaded SQL. It is still hard to beat for $1 though. I am probably going to get another box and throw MariaDB on it to stop those pesky users from hindering me.



Initially vpsBoard was using BuyVM's offloaded SQL server as well. For $1/mo it's great! However the cost of a 256MB KVM wasn't too much more and that gives me a bit more control over the DB and performance has since been stable and solid.


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## Jono20201 (Oct 5, 2013)

Does this service actually run MySQL or one of the drop in replacements?


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## Francisco (Oct 5, 2013)

Jono20201 said:


> Does this service actually run MySQL or one of the drop in replacements?


MariaDB.

Straight MySQL performed really poorly 

Francisco


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## Daniel15 (Oct 5, 2013)

> It's known and in the works.
> 
> Most of the time it's fine but I'm guessing when users are doing major imports and such it kinda hits the fan.
> 
> There's a major upgrade coming to it this month


Great, thanks. I'll probably switch back once performance is stable again 


Francisco said:


> MariaDB.
> 
> Straight MySQL performed really poorly
> 
> Francisco


I thought you were using Percona? I remember reading that somewhere.


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## Francisco (Oct 5, 2013)

Yes, we were.

Percona broke their userstats controls, though, so we couldn't track down abuse.

Maria has it working and we see no difference in performance compared to Percona.

Francisco


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## fahad (Jan 7, 2020)

Francisco said:


> Yes, we were.
> 
> Percona broke their userstats controls, though, so we couldn't track down abuse.
> 
> ...




Are you still using MariaDB and if so, how is it doing?


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