Using Drizzle DB with your PHP Site

While mySQL remains the primary database used with PHP sites, Drizzle is a variant that is designed to be faster and more nimble. An open source by product of mySQL, Drizzle is a much more lightweight database which makes it easier to scale without complications. There is a growing developer community who has adopted the program for its improved efficiency, which matters for large scale sites within a cloud hosting environment. If you’re looking for a lightweight, nimble alternative to SQL then Drizzle may be ideal for your site.

The project itself is written in C++ and is a direct fork from mySQL version 6.0 released under an open source license. Today, the software is supported by a variety of teams from the open source community and is actively used by major organizations ranging from Google to Sun (the developers of mySQL.)  With less code, a smaller kernel, plug and play features and improved optimization, the project continues to grow in adoption. While there are changes from the original mySQL architecture, developers can usually begin working with Drizzle fluently in just a few weeks. Its impressive contributor community has made it stable for a variety of uses.  Although it lacks the large scale professional developer or support community, the database is growing in adoption and has advocates in many leading organizations.

There are several differences since the database uses Inno Database for storage, is less versatile than mySQL in terms of compatibility and has a plug-in structure that allows users to extend its functionality in innovative ways. If you have a large scale, mission critical application then you should stick with mySQL since its more mature and stable. Programmers looking for an early adopter solution with better load times can consider Drizzle as a development alternative. You can run shell of the database in Mac, Linux or Solaris environments, although it hasn’t been adapted for Windows. Using a variety of open source libraries, the program uses Google Buffers, which helps optimize it for speed. In fact, Drizzle itself combines best practices and code from a variety of sources. Installing the database on your server is quite easy:

tar -xzvf libdrizzle-0.version.tar.gz

cd libdrizzle-0.version

./configure –prefix=dir/local/

make

make install

groupadd drizgroup

useradd drizDB

mkdir /dir/local/drizzle

chown –R drizDB

chgroup –R drizgroup

This process will install the client which is similar to the mySQL version, since it’s based upon the same format. You should follow the installation guidelines on the site, since you may have to tailor it especially for your environment. The software is highly compatible with PHP since it has a dedicated extension that makes API connections easy. In fact, using Drizzle with a LAMP site is nearly as easy as using mySQL itself:

$drizzle = drizzle_create();

$conn = drizzle_con_add_tcp($drizDB, $host, $port, $user, $pass, $database, 0);

You can run nearly any type of query, function or output function from mySQL with a unique set of expressions. These are tailored to be similar to those of mysQL for frequent LAMP users. Therefore, the learning curve is short and the results for cloud-based sites are impressive in terms of a more lightweight data footprint.

External Links

• Drizzle DB Official Website
• Dribble DB Project on Twitter