MYSQL KEY-VALUE PAIR Viability

Question

Hi,

I am new to mysql and I am looking for some answers to the follwoing questions:

a) Can mysql community server can be leveraged for a key-value pair type database.??

b) Which mysql engine is best suited for a key-value pair type database ??

c) Is Mysql cluster a must for horizontal scaling of key-value based datastore or can it be acheived using MySQL replication??

d) Are there any docs or whitepapers for best practices when implementiing a kv datastore on mysql??

e) Are there any known big implementations other that friendfeed doing kv pair using MYSQL??

Would really appreciate some advise from all you Mysql gurus out there !!

Thanks In Advance, Amit

Answer 1

Any relational database can provide a key-value store, but it's not what they're for: and they aren't good at it, not when compared to native key-value databases like e.g. Cassandra.

If your requirements aren't high, your best bet would be MyISAM as it's probably fastest and transaction support is not (high) on the priority list of key-value databases.