Preparing Your Databases For a COVID Battle with ClusterControl

During these COVID-ridden days, chances are that your database instances are facing a lot of problems. Some of these problems might be related to performance issues (we mean, have you ever thought about how many people are staying at home during lockdowns and whatnot and how many of them are using the services your business provides? Numbers are scary, aren’t they?), some of them – to security issues (due to the hackers staying at home as well, the numbers of data breaches have been on the rise as well), some of them to high availability too (your service has to be able to keep itself up even with a huge influx of users, doesn’t it?)

ClusterControl to the Rescue

If your database instances are facing problems, there are a couple of tools that can assist in solving them. When choosing a tool of such a caliber though, be sure to evaluate whether it’s made by known database ninjas or not, and also evaluate whether it’s able to solve all of the problems your business encounters. A tool that solves only performance-related issues might be of no use if the majority of your problems are related to high availability or security of your database instances, right?

Thankfully, ClusterControl by Severalnines can solve all of those problems. ClusterControl is the only database management system you will ever need to solve all of your database problems, and, perhaps more importantly, take control of your entire database infrastructure. ClusterControl by Severalnines comes with many advanced features, each with their bells and whistles like:

• The ability to observe how your database clusters and database nodes are doing in real-time by simply observing a couple of graphs. For example, look how your MariaDB Galera Clusters can look like when ClusterControl is in use:
   

  

• The ability to let you observe your database server statistics – don’t have a DBA at hand? Don’t know how to see how many disk reads and (or) disk writes are running on your database instances at the present moment? No worries – turn to ClusterControl and it will solve all of your issues without you even needing to blink – the index page, for example, has a Server Stats part that can help you see for how long your database clusters were up, etc.:
   

  

• The ability to advise you what should you do to improve your database performance – in these COVID days, a lot of people could be using your application, and you would think that if you don’t know enough about how databases work and function in this space, you might be in for a little trouble. Well, not with ClusterControl. ClusterControl has a bunch of advisors that will improve your MySQL, InnoDB performance, as well as advise you in regards to miscellaneous information – here’s how it could look like when ClusterControl would be monitoring your database instances:

  

  ClusterControl advisors can be even scheduled, disabled, or even edited if you are into javascript-like code as well: isn’t that amazing?

• In these COVID days, you might also be pressed to back up your data because there are all kinds of regulations that require you to do so. Well, with ClusterControl everything is very easy – head over to the Backups tab and you will be able to create a backup, restore one, or, if you desire, even schedule one as well!

  

  In this case, note that backups can also be uploaded to the cloud to not waste your precious disk space. ClusterControl can also compress your backups for you, encrypt them if you so desire, and help you choose for how long you want to keep them as well: the default period of backups being kept is a month (31 days), but you can also define a custom period, or, if you want to, keep your backups on the disk forever. Hey, it’s your call!

  

  Yes, your backups can also use extended inserts, and they can be even verified – after all, isn’t that part of what the DBAs at your company are tasked to do, no? You can also choose a compression level as well if you feel like your backups would consume a lot of disk space.

• During COVID times, chances are that your databases will no longer perform at the very best of their ability and there are also chances that some database jobs that are usually running without any kinds of problems will start to error out. ClusterControl by Severalnines has you covered in this space too:

  

  As you can see, ClusterControl lets you see what database jobs were successfully completed and what database jobs failed. You will also be able to see what part of those database jobs failed which could be incredibly helpful if you want to get to the core of the issue. After all, ClusterControl is your automatic DBA – is a DBA really a DBA if he or she cannot find database-related issues? With ClusterControl, you will no longer have to worry about having any of these!

• You might also want to keep an eye out for your database topology as well: ClusterControl makes it easy too! Just click on the topology button and you will be presented with all of the glory that your databases consist of:

  

  Easy? Convenient? Yes, we think so too!

ClusterControl has many other unique features (such as a command line client (CLI) and some others), but we will let you figure out these yourself. ClusterControl also has a documentation section because, after all, what kind of a battle is a battle if you don’t even know what (database performance-based) “enemies” are you going to fight and how to fend them off? Keep an eye out on the documentation as well and you will be very well prepared for any kind of storms that might blow towards your database instances at any time.