Percona Distribution for MySQL Operator Based on Percona Server for MySQL - Alph...

Percona Distribution for MySQL Operator Based on Percona Server for MySQL

Operators are a software framework that extends Kubernetes API and enables application deployment and management through the control plane. For such complex technologies as databases, Operators play a crucial role by automating deployment and day-to-day operations. At Percona we have the following production-ready and enterprise-grade Kubernetes Operators for databases:

• Percona Distribution for MySQL Operator
  • Leverage Percona XtraDB Cluster to deploy a highly reliable MySQL database with synchronous replication based on Galera.
• Percona Distribution for MongoDB Operator
  • Deploy scalable MongoDB clusters and leverage enterprise features of Percona Server for MongoDB.
• Percona Distribution for PostgreSQL Operator
  • Deploy and manage PostgreSQL clusters on K8S.

Today we are glad to announce an alpha version of our new Operator for MySQL. In this blog post, we are going to answer some frequently asked questions.

Why the New Operator?

As mentioned above, our existing operator for MySQL is based on the Percona XtraDB Cluster (PXC). It is feature-rich and provides virtually-synchronous replication by utilizing Galera Write-Sets. Sync replication ensures data consistency and proved itself useful for critical applications, especially on Kubernetes.

But there are two things that we want to address:

1. Our community and customers let us know that there are numerous use cases where asynchronous replication would be a more suitable solution for MySQL on Kubernetes.
2. Support Group Replication (GR) – a native way to provide synchronous replication in MySQL without the need to use Galera.

We heard you! That is why our new Operator is going to run Percona Server for MySQL (PS) and provide both regular asynchronous (with semi-sync support) and virtually-synchronous replication based on GR.

What Is the Name of the New Operator?

We will have two Operators for MySQL and follow the same naming as we have for Distributions:

• Percona Distribution for MySQL Operator – PXC (Existing Operator)
• Percona Distribution for MySQL Operator – PS (Percona Server for MySQL)

Is It the Successor of the Existing Operator for MySQL?

Not in the short run. We want to provide our users MySQL clusters on Kubernetes with three replication capabilities:

• Percona XtraDB Cluster
• Group Replication
• Regular asynchronous replication with semi-sync support

Will I Be Able to Switch From One Operator to Another?

We are going to provide instructions and tools for migrations through replication or backup and restore. As the underlying implementation is totally different there is no direct, automated path to switch available.

Can I Use the New Operator Now?

Yes, but please remember that it is an alpha version and we do not recommend it for production workloads. 

Our Operator is licensed under Apache 2.0 and can be found in the percona-server-mysql-operator repository on GitHub.

To learn more about our operator please see the documentation.

Quick Deploy

Run these two commands to spin up a MySQL cluster with 3 nodes with asynchronous replication:

In a couple of minutes, the cluster is going to be up and running. Verify:

Connect to the Cluster

First, you need to get the root user password, which was automatically generated by the Operator. By default system users’ passwords are stored in cluster1-secrets Secret resource:

Start another container with a MySQL client in it:

Connect to a primary node of our MySQL cluster from this container:

Consult the documentation to learn more about other operational capabilities and options.

What Is Currently Supported?

The following functionality is available in the Operator:

• Deploy asynchronous and semi-sync replication MySQL clusters with Orchestrator on top of it
• Expose clusters with regular Kubernetes Services
• Monitor the cluster with Percona Monitoring and Management
• Customize MySQL configuration

When Will It Be GA? What Is Going to Be Included?

Our goal is to release the GA version late in Q2 2022. We plan to include the following:

• Support for both sync and async replication
• Backups and restores, proxies integration
• Certifications on various Kubernetes platforms and flavors
• Deploy and manage MySQL Clusters with PMM DBaaS

Call for Action

Percona Distribution for MySQL Operator – PS just hatched and your feedback is highly appreciated. 

• To report a bug use jira.percona.com and create the bug in K8SPS project.
• For general questions and sharing your thoughts, we have a community forum or Discord where we chat about open source, databases, Kubernetes, and many more.
• Pull requests are as usual welcome at percona-server-mysql-operator repository. See the CONTRIBUTING.md file for details.

Open a bug or create a Pull Request for a chance to get awesome Percona Swag!