Scaling with multiple databases - which approach is 'best'?

Rails
1

Hi All,

I’m looking at options for using multiple databases in a
master-for-writes, slaves-for-reads config. I’ve Googled up multiple
options including ActsAsReadonlyable, MagicMultiConnections,
ActiveDelegate, and native MySQL. I’m looking for any real-world
experience / advice on which of these (or others) are real options.
Some background on my constraints…

  1. the site is customer-facing and business-critical
  2. development is done primariliy on WinXP boxes (corp standard) running
    local copies of MySQL. production is a clustered environment (except
    for a single DB box right now)
  3. we have a DBA group that controls the production DB environment
  4. all the ‘normal’ Fortune 500 organization / process stuff

Thanks in advance!
Bill

2

Simplist solution is to stick a load balancer in front of your DB
servers. Select request get past to the server with least load, inserts,
updates and deletes go to all of them