Creating a cluster > Setting up replication > Creating a replication cluster

Load balancing is turned on by default for any distributed table using mirroring. By default queries are distributed randomly among the mirrors. To change this behaviour you can use ha_strategy.

ha_strategy = {random|nodeads|noerrors|roundrobin}

Agent mirror selection strategy for load balancing. Optional, default is random.

The strategy used for mirror selection, or in other words, choosing a specific agent mirror in a distributed table. Essentially, this directive controls how exactly master does the load balancing between the configured mirror agent nodes. The following strategies are implemented:

The default balancing mode. Simple linear random distribution among the mirrors. That is, equal selection probability are assigned to every mirror. Kind of similar to round-robin (RR), but unlike RR, does not impose a strict selection order.

‹›

Example

Example

📋

ha_strategy = random

The default simple random strategy does not take mirror status, error rate and, most importantly, actual response latencies into account. So to accommodate for heterogeneous clusters and/or temporary spikes in agent node load, we have a group of balancing strategies that dynamically adjusts the probabilities based on the actual query latencies observed by the master.

The adaptive strategies based on latency-weighted probabilities basically work as follows:

latency stats are accumulated in blocks of ha_period_karma seconds;
once per karma period latency-weighted probabilities get recomputed;
once per request (including ping requests) "dead or alive" flag is adjusted.

Currently, we begin with equal probabilities (or percentages, for brevity), and on every step, scale them by the inverse of the latencies observed during the last "karma" period, and then renormalize them. For example, if during the first 60 seconds after the master startup 4 mirrors had latencies of 10, 5, 30, and 3 msec/query respectively, the first adjustment step would go as follow:

initial percentages: 0.25, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25;
observed latencies: 10 ms, 5 ms, 30 ms, 3 ms;
inverse latencies: 0.1, 0.2, 0.0333, 0.333;
scaled percentages: 0.025, 0.05, 0.008333, 0.0833;
renormalized percentages: 0.15, 0.30, 0.05, 0.50.

Meaning that the 1st mirror would have a 15% chance of being chosen during the next karma period, the 2nd one a 30% chance, the 3rd one (slowest at 30 ms) only a 5% chance, and the 4th and the fastest one (at 3 ms) a 50% chance. Then, after that period, the second adjustment step would update those chances again, and so on.

The rationale here is, once the observed latencies stabilize, the latency weighted probabilities stabilize as well. So all these adjustment iterations are supposed to converge at a point where the average latencies are (roughly) equal over all mirrors.

Latency-weighted probabilities, but dead mirrors are excluded from the selection. "Dead" mirror is defined as a mirror that resulted in multiple hard errors (eg. network failure, or no answer, etc) in a row.

‹›

Example

Example

📋

ha_strategy = nodeads

Latency-weighted probabilities, but mirrors with worse errors/success ratio are excluded from the selection.

‹›

Example

Example

📋

ha_strategy = noerrors

Simple round-robin selection, that is, selecting the 1st mirror in the list, then the 2nd one, then the 3rd one, etc, and then repeating the process once the last mirror in the list is reached. Unlike with the randomized strategies, RR imposes a strict querying order (1, 2, 3, ..., N-1, N, 1, 2, 3, ... and so on) and guarantees that no two subsequent queries will be sent to the same mirror.

‹›

Example

Example

📋

ha_strategy = roundrobin

ha_period_karma = 2m

ha_period_karma defines agent mirror statistics window size, in seconds (or time suffixed). Optional, default is 60.

For a distributed table with agent mirrors in it, server tracks several different per-mirror counters. These counters are then used for failover and balancing. (Server picks the best mirror to use based on the counters.) Counters are accumulated in blocks of ha_period_karma seconds.

After beginning a new block, master may still use the accumulated values from the previous one, until the new one is half full. Thus, any previous history stops affecting the mirror choice after 1.5 times ha_period_karma seconds at most.

Despite that at most 2 blocks are used for mirror selection, up to 15 last blocks are actually stored, for instrumentation purposes. They can be inspected using SHOW AGENT STATUS statement.

ha_ping_interval = 3s

ha_ping_interval defines interval between agent mirror pings, in milliseconds (or time suffixed). Optional, default is 1000.

For a distributed table with agent mirrors in it, server sends all mirrors a ping command during the idle periods. This is to track the current agent status (alive or dead, network roundtrip, etc). The interval between such pings is defined by this directive.

To disable pings, set ha_ping_interval to 0.

Setting up replication

Write transaction (any result of INSERT, REPLACE, DELETE, TRUNCATE, UPDATE, COMMIT) can be replicated to other cluster nodes before the transaction is fully applied on the current node. Currently replication is supported for percolate and rt tables in Linux an MacOS. Manticore Search packages for Windows do not provide replication support.

Manticore's replication is based on Galera library and features the following:

true multi-master - read and write to any node at any time
virtually synchronous replication - no slave lag, no data is lost after a node crash
hot standby - no downtime during failover (since there is no failover)
tightly coupled - all the nodes hold the same state. No diverged data between nodes allowed
automatic node provisioning - no need to manually back up the database and restore it on a new node
easy to use and deploy
detection and automatic eviction of unreliable nodes
certification based replication

To use replication in Manticore Search:

data_dir option should be set in section "searchd" of the configuration file. Replication is not supported in the plain mode
there should be either:
- a listen directive specified (without specifying a protocol) containing an IP address accessible by other nodes
- or node_address with an accessible IP address
optionally you can set unique values for server_id on each cluster node. If no value is set, the node will try to use the MAC address (or a random number if that fails) to generate the server_id.

If there is no replication listen directive set Manticore will use the first two free ports in the range of 200 ports after the default protocol listening port for each created cluster. To set replication ports manually the listen directive (of replication type) port range should be defined and the address/port range pairs should not intersect between different nodes on the same server. As a rule of thumb, the port range should specify no less than two ports per cluster.

Replication cluster is a set of nodes among which a write transaction gets replicated. Replication is configured on per-table basis, meaning that one table can be assigned to only one cluster. There is no restriction on how many tables a cluster can have. All transactions such as INSERT, REPLACE, DELETE, TRUNCATE in any percolate or real-time table belonging to a cluster are replicated to all the other nodes in the cluster. Replication is multi-master, so writes to any particular node or to multiple nodes simultaneously work equally well.

In most cases you create cluster with CREATE CLUSTER <cluster name> and join cluster with JOIN CLUSTER <cluster name> at 'host:port', but in rare cases you may want to fine-tune the behaviour of CREATE/JOIN CLUSTER. The options are:

Specifies cluster name. Should be unique.

Data directory for a write-set cache replication and incoming tables from other nodes. Should be unique among the other clusters in the node. Default is data_dir. Should be specified in the form of a path to an existing directory relative to the data_dir.

List of address:port pairs for all the nodes in the cluster (comma separated). Node's API interface should be used for this option. It can contain the current node's address too. This list is used to join a node to the cluster and rejoin it after restart.

Other options that are passed over directly to Galera replication plugin as described here Galera Documentation Parameters

For SQL interface all write statements such as INSERT, REPLACE, DELETE, TRUNCATE, UPDATE that change the content of a cluster's table should use cluster_name:index_name expression in place of a table name to make sure the change is propagated to all replicas in the cluster. An error will be triggered otherwise.

All write statements for HTTP interface to a cluster's table should set cluster property along with table name. An error will be triggered otherwise.

Auto ID generated for a table in a cluster should be valid as soon as server_id is not misconfigured.

‹›

SQL
JSON
PHP
Python
Javascript
Java

📋

INSERT INTO posts:weekly_index VALUES ( 'iphone case' )
TRUNCATE RTINDEX click_query:weekly_index
UPDATE INTO posts:rt_tags SET tags=(101, 302, 304) WHERE MATCH ('use') AND id IN (1,101,201)
DELETE FROM clicks:rt WHERE MATCH ('dumy') AND gid>206

POST /insert -d '
{
  "cluster":"posts",
  "index":"weekly_index",
  "doc":
  {
    "title" : "iphone case",
    "price" : 19.85
  }
}'
POST /delete -d '
{
  "cluster":"posts",
  "index": "weekly_index",
  "id":1
}'

$index->addDocuments([
        1, ['title' => 'iphone case', 'price' => 19.85]
]);
$index->deleteDocument(1);

indexApi.insert({"cluster":"posts","index":"weekly_index","doc":{"title":"iphone case","price":19.85}})
indexApi.delete({"cluster":"posts","index":"weekly_index","id":1})

res = await indexApi.insert({"cluster":"posts","index":"weekly_index","doc":{"title":"iphone case","price":19.85}});
 res = await indexApi.delete({"cluster":"posts","index":"weekly_index","id":1});

InsertDocumentRequest newdoc = new InsertDocumentRequest();
HashMap<String,Object> doc = new HashMap<String,Object>(){{
    put("title","Crossbody Bag with Tassel");
    put("price",19.85);
}};
newdoc.index("weekly_index").cluster("posts").id(1L).setDoc(doc);
sqlresult = indexApi.insert(newdoc);

DeleteDocumentRequest deleteRequest = new DeleteDocumentRequest();
deleteRequest.index("weekly_index").cluster("posts").setId(1L);
indexApi.delete(deleteRequest);

Read statements such as SELECT, CALL PQ, DESCRIBE can use either regular table names not prepended with a cluster name or cluster_name:index_name. In this case cluster_name is just ignored.

In HTTP endpoint json/search you can specify cluster property if you like, but can also omit it.

‹›

SQL
JSON

📋

SELECT * FROM weekly_index
CALL PQ('posts:weekly_index', 'document is here')

Replication plugin options can be changed using SET statement (see the example).

See Galera Documentation Parameters for a list of available options.

‹›

SQL
JSON

📋

SET CLUSTER click_query GLOBAL 'pc.bootstrap' = 1

Sometimes replicated nodes can diverge from each other. The state of all the nodes might turn into non-primary due to a network split between nodes, a cluster crash, or if the replication plugin hits an exception when determining the primary component. Then it's necessary to select a node and promote it to the primary component.

To determine which node needs to be a reference, compare the last_committed cluster status variable value on all nodes. If all the servers are already running there's no need to start the cluster again. You just need to promote the most advanced node to the primary component with SET statement (see the example).

All other nodes will reconnect to the node and resync their data based on this node.

‹›

SQL
JSON

📋

SET CLUSTER posts GLOBAL 'pc.bootstrap' = 1

To use replication define one listen port for SphinxAPI protocol and one listen for replication address and port range in the config. Define data_dir folder for incoming tables.

‹›

ini

📋

searchd {
  listen   = 9312
  listen   = 192.168.1.101:9360-9370:replication
  data_dir = /var/lib/manticore/
  ...
 }

Create a cluster at the server that has local tables that need to be replicated

‹›

SQL
JSON
PHP
Python
Javascript
Java

📋

CREATE CLUSTER posts

POST /cli -d "
CREATE CLUSTER posts
"

$params = [
    'cluster' => 'posts'
    ]
];
$response = $client->cluster()->create($params);

utilsApi.sql('CREATE CLUSTER posts')

res = await utilsApi.sql('CREATE CLUSTER posts');

utilsApi.sql("CREATE CLUSTER posts");

Add these local tables to cluster

‹›

SQL
JSON
PHP
Python
Javascript
Java

📋

ALTER CLUSTER posts ADD pq_title
ALTER CLUSTER posts ADD pq_clicks

POST /cli -d "
ALTER CLUSTER posts ADD pq_title
"
POST /cli -d "
ALTER CLUSTER posts ADD pq_clicks
"

$params = [
  'cluster' => 'posts',
  'body' => [
     'operation' => 'add',
     'index' => 'pq_title'

  ]
];
$response = $client->cluster()->alter($params);
$params = [
  'cluster' => 'posts',
  'body' => [
     'operation' => 'add',
     'index' => 'pq_clicks'

  ]
];
$response = $client->cluster()->alter($params);

utilsApi.sql('ALTER CLUSTER posts ADD pq_title')
utilsApi.sql('ALTER CLUSTER posts ADD pq_clicks')

res = await utilsApi.sql('ALTER CLUSTER posts ADD pq_title');
res = await utilsApi.sql('ALTER CLUSTER posts ADD pq_clicks');

utilsApi.sql("ALTER CLUSTER posts ADD pq_title");
utilsApi.sql("ALTER CLUSTER posts ADD pq_clicks");

All other nodes that want replica of cluster's tables should join cluster as

‹›

SQL
JSON
PHP
Python
Javascript
Java

📋

JOIN CLUSTER posts AT '192.168.1.101:9312'

POST /cli -d "
JOIN CLUSTER posts AT '192.168.1.101:9312'
"

$params = [
  'cluster' => 'posts',
  'body' => [
      '192.168.1.101:9312'
  ]
];
$response = $client->cluster->join($params);

utilsApi.sql('JOIN CLUSTER posts AT \'192.168.1.101:9312\'')

res = await utilsApi.sql('JOIN CLUSTER posts AT \'192.168.1.101:9312\'');

utilsApi.sql("JOIN CLUSTER posts AT '192.168.1.101:9312'");

When running queries for SQL prepend the table name with the cluster name posts: or use cluster property for HTTP request object.

‹›

SQL
JSON
PHP
Python
Javascript
Java

📋

INSERT INTO posts:pq_title VALUES ( 3, 'test me' )

POST /insert -d '
{
  "cluster":"posts",
  "index":"pq_title",
  "id": 3
  "doc":
  {
    "title" : "test me"
  }
}'

$index->addDocuments([
        3, ['title' => 'test me']
]);

indexApi.insert({"cluster":"posts","index":"pq_title","id":3"doc":{"title":"test me"}})

res = await indexApi.insert({"cluster":"posts","index":"pq_title","id":3"doc":{"title":"test me"}});

InsertDocumentRequest newdoc = new InsertDocumentRequest();
HashMap<String,Object> doc = new HashMap<String,Object>(){{
    put("title","test me");
}};
newdoc.index("pq_title").cluster("posts").id(3L).setDoc(doc);
sqlresult = indexApi.insert(newdoc);

Now all such queries that modify tables in the cluster are replicated to all nodes in the cluster.

Load balancing Creating a replication cluster

To create a replication cluster you should set at least its name.

In case of a single cluster or if you are creating the first cluster, path option may be omitted, in this case data_dir option will be used as the cluster path. For all subsequent clusters you need to specify path and this path should be available. nodes option may be also set to enumerate all the nodes in the cluster.

‹›

SQL
JSON
PHP
Python
javascript
Java

📋

CREATE CLUSTER posts
CREATE CLUSTER click_query '/var/data/click_query/' as path
CREATE CLUSTER click_query '/var/data/click_query/' as path, 'clicks_mirror1:9312,clicks_mirror2:9312,clicks_mirror3:9312' as nodes

POST /cli -d "
CREATE CLUSTER posts
"
POST /cli -d "
CREATE CLUSTER click_query '/var/data/click_query/' as path
"
POST /cli -d "
CREATE CLUSTER click_query '/var/data/click_query/' as path, 'clicks_mirror1:9312,clicks_mirror2:9312,clicks_mirror3:9312' as nodes
"

$params = [
    'cluster' => 'posts',
    ]
];
$response = $client->cluster()->create($params);
$params = [
    'cluster' => 'click_query',
    'body' => [
        'path' => '/var/data/click_query/'
    ]    
    ]
];
$response = $client->cluster()->create($params);
$params = [
    'cluster' => 'click_query',
    'body' => [
        'path' => '/var/data/click_query/',
        'nodes' => 'clicks_mirror1:9312,clicks_mirror2:9312,clicks_mirror3:9312'
    ]    
    ]
];
$response = $client->cluster()->create($params);

utilsApi.sql('CREATE CLUSTER posts')
utilsApi.sql('CREATE CLUSTER click_query \'/var/data/click_query/\' as path')
utilsApi.sql('CREATE CLUSTER click_query \'/var/data/click_query/\' as path, \'clicks_mirror1:9312,clicks_mirror2:9312,clicks_mirror3:9312\' as nodes')

res = await utilsApi.sql('CREATE CLUSTER posts');
res = await utilsApi.sql('CREATE CLUSTER click_query \'/var/data/click_query/\' as path');
res = await utilsApi.sql('CREATE CLUSTER click_query \'/var/data/click_query/\' as path, \'clicks_mirror1:9312,clicks_mirror2:9312,clicks_mirror3:9312\' as nodes');

utilsApi.sql("CREATE CLUSTER posts");
utilsApi.sql("CREATE CLUSTER click_query '/var/data/click_query/' as path");
utilsApi.sql("CREATE CLUSTER click_query '/var/data/click_query/' as path, 'clicks_mirror1:9312,clicks_mirror2:9312,clicks_mirror3:9312' as nodes");

If a cluster is created without the nodes option, the first node that gets joined to the cluster will be saved as nodes.

Setting up replication Joining a replication cluster

To join an existing cluster you should specify at least:

name
and host:port of another working node of the cluster you are joining

‹›

SQL
JSON
PHP
Python
javascript
Java

📋

JOIN CLUSTER posts AT '10.12.1.35:9312'

POST /cli -d "
JOIN CLUSTER posts AT '10.12.1.35:9312'
"

$params = [
  'cluster' => 'posts',
  'body' => [
      '10.12.1.35:9312'
  ]
];
$response = $client->cluster->join($params);

utilsApi.sql('JOIN CLUSTER posts AT \'10.12.1.35:9312\'')

res = await utilsApi.sql('JOIN CLUSTER posts AT \'10.12.1.35:9312\'');

utilsApi.sql("JOIN CLUSTER posts AT '10.12.1.35:9312'");

‹›

Response

{u'error': u'', u'total': 0, u'warning': u''}

In case of a single replication cluster, i.e. in most cases the above is just enough. In case you are creating multiple replication clusters path needs to be set as well and the directory should be available.

‹›

SQL

📋

JOIN CLUSTER c2 at '127.0.0.1:10201' 'c2' as path

A node joins a cluster by getting data from another specified node and, if successful, it updates node lists in all other cluster nodes similar to how it's done manually via ALTER CLUSTER ... UPDATE nodes. This list is used to rejoin nodes to the cluster on restart.

There are two lists of nodes:

cluster_<name>_nodes_set: used to rejoin nodes to the cluster on restart, it is updated across all nodes same way as ALTER CLUSTER ... UPDATE nodes does. JOIN CLUSTER does the same update automatically. Cluster status shows this list as cluster_<name>_nodes_set.
cluster_<name>_nodes_view: list of all active nodes used for replication. This list doesn't require manual management. ALTER CLUSTER ... UPDATE nodes actually copies this list of nodes to the list of nodes used to rejoin on restart. Cluster status shows this list as cluster_<name>_nodes_view.

When nodes are located in different network segments or in different datacenters, nodes option may be set explicitly. That allows to minimize traffic between nodes and to use gateway nodes for datacenters intercommunication. The following command joins an existing cluster using the nodes option.

Note: that when this syntax is used, cluster_<name>_nodes_set list is not updated automatically. Use ALTER CLUSTER ... UPDATE nodes to update it.

‹›

SQL
JSON
PHP
Python
javascript
Java

📋

JOIN CLUSTER click_query 'clicks_mirror1:9312;clicks_mirror2:9312;clicks_mirror3:9312' as nodes

POST /cli -d "
JOIN CLUSTER click_query 'clicks_mirror1:9312;clicks_mirror2:9312;clicks_mirror3:9312' as nodes
"

$params = [
  'cluster' => 'posts',
  'body' => [
      'nodes' => 'clicks_mirror1:9312;clicks_mirror2:9312;clicks_mirror3:9312'
  ]
];
$response = $client->cluster->join($params);

utilsApi.sql('JOIN CLUSTER click_query \'clicks_mirror1:9312;clicks_mirror2:9312;clicks_mirror3:9312\' as nodes')

res = await utilsApi.sql('JOIN CLUSTER click_query \'clicks_mirror1:9312;clicks_mirror2:9312;clicks_mirror3:9312\' as nodes');

utilsApi.sql("JOIN CLUSTER click_query 'clicks_mirror1:9312;clicks_mirror2:9312;clicks_mirror3:9312' as nodes");

‹›

Response

{u'error': u'', u'total': 0, u'warning': u''}

JOIN CLUSTER works synchronously and completes as soon as the node receives all data from the other nodes in the cluster and is in sync with them.

Creating a replication cluster Deleting a replication cluster

Load balancing

ha_strategy

Simple random balancing

Adaptive randomized balancing

nodeads

noerrors

Round-robin balancing

Instance-wide options

ha_period_karma

ha_ping_interval

Setting up replication

Replication cluster

name

path

nodes

options

Write statements

Read statements

Cluster parameters

Cluster with diverged nodes

Replication and cluster

Creating a replication cluster

Joining a replication cluster