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November 19, 2005
Wireless, Battery Powered MySQL Cluster
Pictured here is an image of a wireless, battery powered MySQL cluster. Yes, it works. The setup is a 12" PowerBook and 15" PowerBook and a 15" iBook.
Why? Back in the spring (this post has been a long time coming) when I wrote about setting up, running and maintaining a MySQL cluster I didn't have 3 servers readily available. For part of the time I was on vacation in an area with unexpected extremely slow dialup so I started the work locally on my laptop.
Upon returning home there was too much momentum on my laptop to switch over to available servers so I commandeered two other laptops for the cluster. It turned out to be the right thing to do. As I continued working we experienced a power outage at our house. I took the photo to document the cluster running without any power, or any ethernet cables.
I don't recommend this for any serious use, but it was an interesting exercise to try, and the setup worked just as well as any for playing with the cluster storage engine. To simulate a machine loosing power I simply closed the lid. With one machine off I did some work in the database. After completing I brought the "sleeping" mac back online and lo and behold the data made it's way back onto that node.
Pretty cool . . . both the cluster engine and the unique setup.
Posted by mike at November 19, 2005 12:08 AM
Comments
The other day I wanted to try out MySQL Replication and setup replication on my laptop windows host with the linux install inside a vmware instance on the same laptop.
Posted by: Lukas at November 19, 2005 3:09 AM
It would appear that this implementation has some practical benefit that most people would not recognize, so I decided to share it here. In the case of the Marines or Army there is a need for computer programs that can be dropped into a combat zone and used to provide support services. In 2001 I built a RFID system and this cluster would provide a fault tolerance for servers going down that has been a problem.
Thanks for sharing this with us.
Posted by: Tracy at December 1, 2005 10:13 AM