Getting Started

This tutorial is a short introduction to using an IBM Cloud® Databases for MySQL deployment. To get started, create a connection to MySQL Workbench, an open source administration platform for MySQL that provides many tools for managing your data and databases. Download and install the version that is appropriate to your environment and then consult MySQL's documentation to connect and manage your Databases for MySQL deployment.

IBM Cloud® Databases for MySQL

IBM Cloud® Databases for MySQL is a serverless, cloud database service that is fully integrated into the IBM Cloud environment. Use Databases for MySQL as a cloud database system without purchasing and setting up your own hardware, installing your own database software, or managing the database yourself.

IBM Cloud® Databases for MySQL requires no software, infrastructure, network, or OS administration. IBM continuously provides fully automated and automatic updates to the service, such as security patches and minor version upgrades. A database instance is deployed by default as highly available across multiple data centers in an IBM Cloud Multi-Zone region with semisynchronous replication. Connect to a single database endpoint and IBM automatically manages the failover between Availability Zones. IBM Cloud® Databases for MySQL allows you to horizontally scale your MySQL instance with Read Replicas in region or cross-regionally. Databases for MySQL Read Replicas can be easily transformed into fully functioning Databases for MySQL instances, an especially useful feature for online cross-regional disaster recovery strategies.

Additionally, Databases for MySQL provides independent scaling of disk, RAM, and vCPU, as well as auto-scaling capabilities and hourly billing. These features help provide greatly increase granularity on right-sizing database use for application workload.

Databases for MySQL is a multi-tenant offering by design and you have multiple levers for increased isolation that is detailed in our Security and Compliance section. For example, configuring a database with vCPUs (referred to as Dedicated Cores) introduces hypervisor-level isolation. Alternatively, if that particular lever of isolation is not necessary, you can configure databases so you pay solely for RAM and disk capacity. There are no restrictions on movement between these modes and it is an online activity to introduce or remove your usage of Dedicated Cores.

Before you begin

You need an IBM Cloud account.
You need a Databases for MySQL deployment. Provision one from the IBM Cloud catalog. Give your deployment a memorable name that appears in your account's Resource List.
Set the Admin Password for your deployment.
Install MySQL Workbench.
Review the Getting to production documentation for general guidance on setting up a basic IBM Cloud® Databases for MySQL deployment.

Connect to your database with the CLI

For the appropriate commands to connect to your database from the CLI, see Cloud Databases CLI Reference and Connecting with mysql.

The ibmcloud cdb deployment-connections command handles everything that is involved in creating a command-line client connection. For example, to connect to a deployment named "example-mysql", use a command like:

ibmcloud cdb deployment-connections example-mysql --start

The command prompts for the admin password and then runs the mysql command-line client to connect to the database. For more information, see Connecting with mysql.

Connect with MySQL Workbench

For more information, see Connections in MySQL Workbench.

Next Steps

If you are using MySQL for the first time, see the MySQL 5.7 Reference Manual.

You can connect, manage your databases, and manage data with MySQL's command-line interface (CLI) tool mysql.

Looking for more tools on managing your deployment? Connect to your deployment with the IBM Cloud CLI, the Cloud Databases CLI plug-in, or the Cloud Databases API.

If you plan to use Databases for MySQL for your applications, check out Connecting an external application and Connecting an IBM Cloud application.

To ensure the stability of your applications and your database, check out High-Availability and Performance.