nphase

Also - big question for me: were you using a ridiculously old version of mongo? I have yet to run into anyone who is on 2.0 or 1.8 and is still running master/slave (as opposed to replica sets). Sounds like your writes weren't working when you moved to replica sets because your client wasn't properly configured.

Future options are precisely what was on the table when negotiating and subsequently accepted an offer form a startup.

- I don't understand this mindset. Forgive me for being naive, but if we're to "toast to the challenges and all become stronger, more proficient, and more successful as a result," then why don't we share these edge cases and fix them?

1: http://www.slicehost.com/articles/2011/9/23/basics-of-the-sl...

I suppose I should've clarified that sooner. Having had some experience scaling MySQL at growing businesses, I am now trying to anticipate an explosion of analytics requirements alongside an explosion of user growth and activity caused by feature growth.

I find this interesting. I wonder if there any real TCO comparisons have been done to this point.

Sure, this paper is full of FUD. But it does raise a valid question for me: What's the difference between paying for Oracle and paying for MySQL, Datastax, or Cloudera support/enterprise to get the added features needed to run my business and keep away from reinventing the wheel?

Walking away is critical to any creative process.

By the time the doors closed, we had about 16 RU's filled, IIRC. The beefiest DB box had 64gb of RAM in it, which as it turns out is a $1200 one-time upgrade for colo vs $1500/mo extra on your dedicated (quick price checks on newegg and softlayer, I'm sure both numbers can come down).

Yes, making the leap into colo can seem like a big up front cost, but over time these costs do work in your favor. Yes, there is a support cost involved (either with remote hands or you getting up at 3am and replacing that disk yourself). But If your workload and dataset are such that you don't necessarily require a new box spun up in less than 24 hours, the savings could be quite great for you.