How NASA Tackles Big Data with MySQL

I run http://DNSDigger.com as a (big) hobby project but trying to commercialize it. I will add features and API access but as far i actually only made like $100USD from it since i started it ~2006. I only recently got a proper server for it but need beefier ones if i gonna expand. My row size is really small but in total i have over a billion rows. Insert speed is crucial as i update/insert new IP data in the millions per day and when the new features is in place i will grow minimum 100 million rows per month. I currently have all tables as MyISAM because insert speed is important and the DB would not fit on the 240GB SSD if i changed to InnoDB. So without any money now i have to use whatever tool i can.

The alternative people normally have in mind when they make comments like "I wish I could afford X" is not "I guess I'll still do whatever it was X would have helped me with, but at much larger pain and cost" but "I guess I won't be able to do the thing X would have helped with at all".

There are many people who have interesting data-related ideas and problems (maybe for companies, maybe for research, or maybe just for fun) who are not going to be able to afford (as the company wouldn't be profitable enough, the research not grant-worthy enough, or with sufficiently little disposable income to play with) large servers with 100s of GB's of additional RAM.

So, one might imagine this same person, were he to have just read an article about a company that successfully managed to scale MySQL by buying the worlds largest computer to run it on from a company specializing in building them--let's call it the supremum-computer--would have made a very similar comment in that context: "I wish I could afford a supremum-computer".

Thereby, I will point out that while it is nice that your solution makes such tasks cheaper, possibly even by an order of magnitude, for people who are making enough money to be considering such things, and while I have no qualms with your business model and wish you a lot of luck, it feels like "rubbing it in our faces" to point out that if we were seriously embarking down one of these paths you are saving us money by buying your solution: that doesn't somehow mean we can afford it.

From their pricing page: "Capacity is defined as the total uncompressed user data found in TokuDB tables on each MySQL server. (Note that the capacity calculation does not include indexes.)"

http://www.tokutek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/tokudb-pri...