Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

MemSQL is now free to use for databases with up to 128GB of RAM usage

memsql.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 121 posts

Re: MemSQL is now free to use for databases with up to 128GB of RAM usage

#111

Post by rtpg »

moocowtruck wrote: post #96
manigandham wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can install it, use it, benchmark it, and check everything yourself. It's not open-source, but there is plenty of closed-source proprietary software, and plenty of buyers who care about solving their problems and paying money to get that done (and ensure the vendor stays alive). If you don't want to use a closed-source product then that's your prerogative, but I don't see how you're making a dev/engineering decis…

because the source is important, it tells the buyer they have a future if they no longer like your services; closed source means they are locked into whatever fresh hell might come upon your company which in turn unleashes fresh hell upon their decision to buy in.. in 2018+ it's just a smart decision to make

That's not a technical decision though. That's a business decision.

A real technical reason might be "the ability to fix the software ourselves" or "easier debugging of the software". Avoiding vendor lock-in isn't a technical decision

Re: MemSQL is now free to use for databases with up to 128GB of RAM usage

#112

Post by cyphar »

manigandham wrote: post #48
moolcool wrote: post #43

This might be a stupid question, but what is the advantage of this solution over an in-memory sqlite database?

Distributed. Scalable. OLTP + OLAP queries. High availability. Very fast performance for reads and writes. They are entirely different systems. Sqlite is meant for self-contained applications that need some relational data persistence with a single file for storage, not for accessing as a central database with many clients storing TBs and scaling across nodes.

There are actually some patches in the works (currently used by LXD from memory) that allow sqlite to be distributed. I'm quite hazy on the details, but apparently this is part of what enables LXD's clustering.

Re: MemSQL is now free to use for databases with up to 128GB of RAM usage

#113

Post by jchanimal »

manigandham wrote: post #109
mmt wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they would solve it for you That hasn't been my experience, at least not on any suitable time scale. I strongly suspect that the vast majority of those of us who have worked somewhere "not more capitalized and viable" than the vendor share that experience. Even when a vendor's support engineer is fully capable of solving the problem, the sense of urgency can't reasonably be expected to match that of a much smaller…

Vendors have support plans and SLAs so if you need 24/7 support then make sure that is indeed what you're paying for. I do not see how having spare engineering talent capable of reading, editing and running a custom database build is the more realistic or faster option for any business in case of issues.

The proof is in the pudding. Plenty/most serious users of open source databases become customers of the relevant companies. The commercial license is usually a small fraction of the potential cost of an outage.

Re: MemSQL is now free to use for databases with up to 128GB of RAM usage

#114

Post by AndyNemmity »

Aeolun wrote: post #94
furicane wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guys, I believe you are engineers that are doing an amazing job. But the whole "free up to 128GB" promotion is just.. wtf. And the website revolves around attracting IT managers, not engineers that make educated decisions related to project(s). I make decisions based on calculations, not based on shiny websites. I'm not undermining your product. It appears to be amazing. I'd love if it were free and open source. Heck…

Free up to 128GB is practically free for up to 95% of applications. In both dev and prod. I really don’t see how you could have a problem with that.

The problem is free up to 128GB is not 95% of problems you would run on an in memory database.

I have never seen a productive system that small. I’ve seen thousands.

Re: MemSQL is now free to use for databases with up to 128GB of RAM usage

#115

Post by pritambarhate »

One thing I would like to see is the commitment to keep it free till X years at least. OK, MemSQL has "decided" to give it for free up to 128GB of RAM usage now. But they can "decide" 2 years later that they want to charge for any MemSQL usage. Then what options the "small" businesses, who have adopted MemSQL, have?

When it comes to commercial products, it is generally good to check if you can afford their paid offering, then only make the tool core part of your infrastructure. For databases, it's better to stick with fully open source popular options from a long-term perspective.

Re: MemSQL is now free to use for databases with up to 128GB of RAM usage

#116

Post by geezerjay »

dangoor wrote: post #67
noir_lord wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the availability of open source solutions why would I in 2018 build a critical part of my application on a closed platform? Genuinely not intended as snark, I'm just curious why memsql is so compelling that I would consider it.

Isn't that what the previous answer was trying to say? Paraphrasing "MemSQL has these features which we think Apache Ignite and others do not." All things being equal, I agree that open source solutions are the best. Things are just not always equal.

> Isn't that what the previous answer was trying to say?

Truth be told, the list if features is not very compelling. I mean, JSON support is not a reason to pick a commercial dbms over a FLOSS one.

Re: MemSQL is now free to use for databases with up to 128GB of RAM usage

#117

Post by mruts »

furicane wrote: post #84

I tried to come up with a smart and polite comment but I can't. The target audience for memsql aren't developers or engineers. It's the management that has no idea about IT. I don't like closed-source solutions. I don't want to book a demo. I want to be able to read the source. I want to install it, use it, benchmark it, be sure that the results are 100% accurate. Sadly, I see this post as marketing ploy and I can't…

I've worked with MemSQL and it's both really easy to use and setup and very fast. FWIW, I'm not a manager.

Re: MemSQL is now free to use for databases with up to 128GB of RAM usage

#118

Post by mmt »

manigandham wrote: post #109
mmt wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they would solve it for you That hasn't been my experience, at least not on any suitable time scale. I strongly suspect that the vast majority of those of us who have worked somewhere "not more capitalized and viable" than the vendor share that experience. Even when a vendor's support engineer is fully capable of solving the problem, the sense of urgency can't reasonably be expected to match that of a much smaller…

Vendors have support plans and SLAs so if you need 24/7 support then make sure that is indeed what you're paying for. I do not see how having spare engineering talent capable of reading, editing and running a custom database build is the more realistic or faster option for any business in case of issues.

> Vendors have support plans and SLAs so if you need 24/7 support then make sure that is indeed what you're paying for.

Those are totally useless during an existential crisis without associated indemnity (which any vendor would be crazy to provide) against loss due to failur to perform.

> I do not see how having spare engineering talent capable of reading, editing and running a custom database build is the more realistic or faster option for any business in case of issues.

I don't see how it isn't, considering that "custom database build" could be so simple as to be trivial. In the GP's case, it was merely using a specific version.

Even the characterization of the required engineering talent as "spare" seems incongruous, as, in small companies, the talent requird to handle unexpected problems with technlogies fundamenta to running the business is essential, not superfluous.

Re: MemSQL is now free to use for databases with up to 128GB of RAM usage

#119

Post by openbasic »

rickn wrote: post #38
starik36 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It says that he 128GB version comes with High Availability features. Does that mean if I have 2 nodes, each one is limited to 64GB? Or each one can have 128?

I am the Director of Product Management for MemSQL. The 128 GB limit applies to the whole cluster. So if you have two nodes in the cluster they would each have to be 64GB or less. If you have four nodes they would all have to be 32 GB or less. To have a highly available system we recommend 4 nodes (a master aggregator, a child aggregator and two leaf nodes). You can read more about the cluster architecture here: http…

How does MemSQL reach consensus between nodes?

Re: MemSQL is now free to use for databases with up to 128GB of RAM usage

#120

Post by ryanjmills »

AndyNemmity wrote: post #114
Aeolun wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free up to 128GB is practically free for up to 95% of applications. In both dev and prod. I really don’t see how you could have a problem with that.

The problem is free up to 128GB is not 95% of problems you would run on an in memory database. I have never seen a productive system that small. I’ve seen thousands.

if you stored data on disk compressed in MemSQL's columnstore, you would use that 128 GB of RAM for query execution. on-disk data storage would not be limited. if that's not a productive system, then I must have imagined the whole data warehouse and data mart market
Post reply on HN