Some observations on MySQL to sqlite migration & compatibility

I’m experimenting with sqlite as backend database for orchestrator. While orchestrator manages MySQL replication topologies, it also uses MySQL as backend. For some deployments, and I’m looking into such one, having MySQL as backend is a considerable overhead.

This sent me to the route of looking into a self contained orchestrator binary + backend DB. I would have orchestrator spawn up its own backend database instead of connecting to an external one.

Why even relational?

Can’t orchestrator just use a key-value backend?

Maybe it could. But frankly I enjoy the power of relational databases, and the versatility they offer has proven itself multiple times with orchestrator, being able to answer interesting, new, complex questions about one’s topology by crafting SQL queries.

Moreover, orchestrator is already heavily invested in the relational model. At this time, replacing all SQL queries with key-value reads seems to me as a significant investment in time and risk. So I was looking for a relational, SQL accessible embeddable database for orchestrator.

Why sqlite?

I am in particular looking at two options: sqlite (via the go-sqlite3 binding) and TiDB. sqlite does not need much introduction, and I’ll just say it’s embeddable within the golang-built binary. Continue reading » “Some observations on MySQL to sqlite migration & compatibility”