Message blobs in Mysql, easy replication?

[kbaker]

So I see that the message store has been divided into metadata stored in mysql and the filessystem for the actual message. I understand that the decision to use the filesystem allowed for increased performance.

I am wondering how hard it would be to store the message blobs in the MySql rather than in the file system. This would allow for a secondary hot backup server to be synced up by simply using the standard master/slave MySql replication.

This concept has been tested in production for some time now by the developers of DBMail.org, another open IMAP server, but that uses MySQL exclusively for its message store.

Any thoughts? I was thinking of this more as an optional configuration rather than a replacement of the current system.

I am much more concerned with up time than speed so would be willing to take a performance hit to make this change.

[marcmac]

We've seen problems (eg data corruption) with that kind of data in mysql.

[kbaker]

I've heard of similiar issues. However the developers at DBMail seem to have mafe it around the issue. I could chat with them about it.

In the interest of curiousity, is the message store to the filesystem in just a few methods? or is it burried in the entire system? If it wouldn't be too hard I might just want to play around with it.

I'll be digging into the code next week to get myself familiar, so will probably will just find it, but thought I'd ask

Thanks,

Kevin

[dkarp]

Originally Posted by kbaker

In the interest of curiousity, is the message store to the filesystem in just a few methods? or is it burried in the entire system? If it wouldn't be too hard I might just want to play around with it.

Theoretically, you should just be able to implement a new subclass of com.zimbra.cs.store.StoreManager. Please let us know how it goes.