

I experimented with a MySQL (yes, MySQL) database located on my MacBook to see if that made a performance difference.I reasoned that the more powerful machine would be the best place to install it. As far as the server goes, I elected to put it on the kubemaster host (AKA Pi Router). For flexibility, plus troubleshooting support, I elected to install the client on all hosts in my cluster as well as on my MacBook Pro in the external network. You need to make a decision when installing MariaDB: Will you want to install the server or the client? Most likely you’ll want both on your cluster. The second article in this series, How to Set Up a Raspberry Pi Cluster, describes the cluster topology I intended to set up. There is a compatibility guide available on the MariaDB website. Per the developers of MariaDB: “MariaDB versions function as a ‘drop-in replacement’ for the equivalent MySQL version.” See this resource for a discussion of the pros and cons of MySQL vs.

MariaDB was created by the original developers of MySQL from a MySQL fork. Why not just install MySQL? Well, it turns out that there isn’t a MySQL package available for installation on a Raspberry Pi using apt-get, which is the preferred way of installing and managing software on Debian and several other Linux distributions. Like MySQL, MariaDB is relatively easy to use and free. MariaDB and MySQL do most everything other relational databases do. Of those, MySQL is one of the most popular. As of 2019, Relational databases made up about 60% of applications’ database platforms. Most significant applications depend on a database of some sort.
