MySQL NDB Cluster is a high-availability, high-redundancy version of MySQL adapted for the distributed computing environment. Recent NDB Cluster release series use version 8 of the NDB storage engine (also known as NDBCLUSTER) to enable running several computers with MySQL servers and other software in a cluster. NDB Cluster 8.0, now available as a Release Candidate (RC) beginning with version 8.0.17, incorporates version 8.0 of the NDB storage engine. NDB Cluster 7.6, is the current GA release, and uses version 7.6 of NDB. Previous GA releases still available for use in production, NDB Cluster 7.5 and NDB Cluster 7.4, incorporate NDB versions 7.5 and 7.4, respectively. NDB Cluster 7.2, which uses version 7.2 of the NDB storage engine, is a previous GA release that is currently still maintained; 7.2 users are encouraged to upgrade to NDB 7.5 or NDB 7.6. NDB 7.1 and previous release series are no longer supported or maintained.

Support for the NDB storage engine is not included in standard MySQL Server 8.0 binaries built by Oracle. Instead, users of NDB Cluster binaries from Oracle should upgrade to the most recent binary release of NDB Cluster for supported platforms—these include RPMs that should work with most Linux distributions. NDB Cluster 8.0 users who build from source should use the sources provided for MySQL 8.0 and build with the options required to provide NDB support. (Locations where the sources can be obtained are listed later in this section.)

This chapter contains information about NDB Cluster 8.0 releases through 8.0.19-ndb-8.0.19, currently available as a Release Candidate. NDB Cluster 7.6 is the latest General Availability release, and is recommended for new deployments; for information about NDB Cluster 7.6, see What is New in NDB Cluster 7.6. For similar information about NDB Cluster 7.5, see What is New in NDB Cluster 7.5. NDB Cluster 7.4 and 7.3 are previous GA releases still supported in production; see MySQL NDB Cluster 7.3 and NDB Cluster 7.4. NDB Cluster 7.2 is a previous GA release series which is still maintained, although we recommend that new deployments for production use NDB Cluster 7.6. For more information about NDB Cluster 7.2, see MySQL NDB Cluster 7.2.

Supported Platforms.  NDB Cluster is currently available and supported on a number of platforms. For exact levels of support available for on specific combinations of operating system versions, operating system distributions, and hardware platforms, please refer to https://www.mysql.com/support/supportedplatforms/cluster.html.

Availability.  NDB Cluster binary and source packages are available for supported platforms from https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/cluster/.

NDB Cluster release numbers.  NDB 8.0 follows the same release pattern as the MySQL Server 8.0 series of releases, beginning with MySQL 8.0.13 and MySQL NDB Cluster 8.0.13. In this Manual and other MySQL documentation, we identify these and later NDB Cluster releases employing a version number that begins with “NDB”. This version number is that of the NDBCLUSTER storage engine used in the NDB 8.0 release, and is the same as the MySQL 8.0 server version on which the NDB Cluster 8.0 release is based.

Version strings used in NDB Cluster software.  The version string displayed by the mysql client supplied with the MySQL NDB Cluster distribution uses this format:

mysql-mysql_server_version-cluster

mysql_server_version represents the version of the MySQL Server on which the NDB Cluster release is based. For all NDB Cluster 8.0 releases, this is 8.0.n, where n is the release number. Building from source using -DWITH_NDBCLUSTER or the equivalent adds the -cluster suffix to the version string. (See Section 22.2.2.4, “Building NDB Cluster from Source on Linux”, and Section 22.2.3.2, “Compiling and Installing NDB Cluster from Source on Windows”.) You can see this format used in the mysql client, as shown here:

shell> mysql
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 2
Server version: 8.0.19-cluster Source distribution

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.

mysql> SELECT VERSION()\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
VERSION(): 8.0.19-cluster
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

The first release of NDB Cluster using MySQL 8.0 was NDB 8.0.13, which used MySQL 8.0.13.

The version string displayed by other NDB Cluster programs not normally included with the MySQL 8.0 distribution uses this format:

mysql-mysql_server_version ndb-ndb_engine_version

mysql_server_version represents the version of the MySQL Server on which the NDB Cluster release is based. For all NDB Cluster 8.0 releases, this is 8.0.n, where n is the release number. ndb_engine_version is the version of the NDB storage engine used by this release of the NDB Cluster software. For all NDB 8.0 releases, this number is the same as the MySQL Server version. You can see this format used in the output of the SHOW command in the ndb_mgm client, like this:

ndb_mgm> SHOW
Connected to Management Server at: localhost:1186
Cluster Configuration
---------------------
[ndbd(NDB)]     2 node(s)
id=1    @10.0.10.6  (mysql-8.0.19 ndb-8.0.19-ndb-8.0.19, Nodegroup: 0, *)
id=2    @10.0.10.8  (mysql-8.0.19 ndb-8.0.19-ndb-8.0.19, Nodegroup: 0)

[ndb_mgmd(MGM)] 1 node(s)
id=3    @10.0.10.2  (mysql-8.0.19 ndb-8.0.19-ndb-8.0.19)

[mysqld(API)]   2 node(s)
id=4    @10.0.10.10  (mysql-8.0.19 ndb-8.0.19-ndb-8.0.19)
id=5 (not connected, accepting connect from any host)

Compatibility with standard MySQL 8.0 releases.  While many standard MySQL schemas and applications can work using NDB Cluster, it is also true that unmodified applications and database schemas may be slightly incompatible or have suboptimal performance when run using NDB Cluster (see Section 22.1.7, “Known Limitations of NDB Cluster”). Most of these issues can be overcome, but this also means that you are very unlikely to be able to switch an existing application datastore—that currently uses, for example, MyISAM or InnoDB—to use the NDB storage engine without allowing for the possibility of changes in schemas, queries, and applications. A mysqld compiled without NDB support (that is, built without -DWITH_NDBCLUSTER_STORAGE_ENGINE or its alias -DWITH_NDBCLUSTER) cannot function as a drop-in replacement for a mysqld that is built with it.

NDB Cluster development source trees.  NDB Cluster development trees can also be accessed from https://github.com/mysql/mysql-server.

The NDB Cluster development sources maintained at https://github.com/mysql/mysql-server are licensed under the GPL. For information about obtaining MySQL sources using Git and building them yourself, see Section 2.9.5, “Installing MySQL Using a Development Source Tree”.

NDB Cluster 7.5 and NDB Cluster 7.6 are available as General Availability (GA) releases; NDB 7.6 is recommended for new deployments. NDB Cluster 7.4 and NDB Cluster 7.3 are previous GA releases which are still supported in production. NDB 7.2 is a previous GA release series which is still maintained; it is no longer recommended for new deployments. For an overview of major features added in NDB 7.6, see What is New in NDB Cluster 7.6. For similar information about NDB Cluster 7.5, see What is New in NDB Cluster 7.5. For information about previous NDB Cluster releases, see MySQL NDB Cluster 7.3 and NDB Cluster 7.4, and MySQL NDB Cluster 7.2.

The contents of this chapter are subject to revision as NDB Cluster continues to evolve. Additional information regarding NDB Cluster can be found on the MySQL website at http://www.mysql.com/products/cluster/.

Additional Resources.  More information about NDB Cluster can be found in the following places: