Re: installing mysql cluster over physical distances

[Jonathan Stephens]

Alex is right. You're really not going to get good performance out of MySQL Cluster without at least 100 Mbps connectivity, and gigabit is even better. (And SCI even better still.) Unless you've a chunk of something like an OC3 line you can dedicate to this purpose, you're not going to see good performance over the Net.

There are also security issues to consider. Communications between machines in a Cluster are not privileged or secured in any way. The best (safest) possible network configuration for a MySQL Cluster in this regard is behind its own firewall, with only the MySQL server(s) being accessible from outside the cluster.

(The security aspect is something we don't emphasise in the Manual at the moment -- and this is largely my fault -- but it will soon be updated to stress this point more strongly.)

Jon Stephens
MySQL Documentation Team @ Oracle

MySQL Dev Zone
MySQL Server Documentation
Oracle