Amazon S3 + MySQL
31 March 2006 14:59

Those who know me know I'm not a big fan of MySQL, but after reading this list of 10 possible apps that could be built on top of Amazon S3, number 6 on that list "generic virtual database with SQL interface" got me thinking. MySQL's architecture is such that it's relatively easy to plug in new table storage types (e.g., Innodb, MyISAM, BerkelyDB). How long before we'll see a table handler that uses Amazon S3? The lack of locking and transaction mechanisms from S3 might be a problem, though.

But if those hurdles could be overcome, you could (in terms of storage) scale your MySQL without worrying about adding disks or volumes or power or whatever. Latency issues will probably be some cause for concern. Is this kind of thing even worth pursuing?

Perhaps a better idea (for us Perlish folks) would be a DBD::Amazon::S3 Perl module.

Ahh, a million ideas, and no time to do much with them...*sigh*.