Scale MySQL to massive size without leaving MySQL — transparent sharding, online resharding, and clustering.

Welcome to Vitess: Scaling MySQL Horizontally.

Vitess is a database clustering system that makes MySQL scale horizontally: it sits in front of many MySQL instances and presents them as one large database, handling sharding, routing, and operations — so you scale MySQL massively while keeping the MySQL you know. This free book teaches it from the ground up: the MySQL scaling problem and sharding fundamentals, Vitess's architecture (VTGate, VTTablet, topology, vtctld), keyspaces/shards and the data model, query routing and the VSchema with vindexes, online resharding with VReplication (zero downtime), connection pooling and transactions, high availability/failover/backups, Vitess on Kubernetes and the ecosystem (MySQL compatibility, PlanetScale), and operating Vitess in production. Ten focused chapters with clear diagrams that show how Vitess scales MySQL transparently — sharding, resharding online, and clustering — without giving up MySQL.

This title is part of the ShriIra library and is free to read in full, right here — our small contribution to making world-class knowledge easy to reach.

A note on reading it: open the Contents menu at the top of the reader to jump between chapters, use the Aa menu to set a comfortable text size, theme (light, sepia, or night), and single- or two-page layout. Your place is saved automatically, so you can always pick up where you left off.

We hope it serves you well.

— Shriira Press

Contents

1. Chapter 1 — What Vitess Is
2. Chapter 2 — Database Sharding Fundamentals
3. Chapter 3 — Architecture
4. Chapter 4 — Keyspaces, Shards, and the Data Model
5. Chapter 5 — Query Routing and the VSchema
6. Chapter 6 — Resharding
7. Chapter 7 — Connection Management and Transactions
8. Chapter 8 — High Availability, Failover, and Backups
9. Chapter 9 — Vitess on Kubernetes and the Ecosystem
10. Chapter 10 — Operating Vitess and Putting It Together