Best Practices

This Quickstart Guide outlines MariaDB best practices for robust deployments. Key areas include regular, tested backups and structured change management. It emphasizes dedicated production servers, thorough pre-production testing, and timely updates. Also highlighted are understanding business requirements and leveraging commercial support for optimal performance and security.

Quickstart Guide: MariaDB Best Practices

Adhering to best practices is crucial for ensuring the performance, stability, and security of your MariaDB deployments. This guide summarizes key recommendations.

1. General Recommendations

• Understand Business Requirements: Before deploying MariaDB, thoroughly understand your business needs and how the database will integrate with existing systems.

2. Backups

• Perform Regular Backups: Always back up existing data and configurations before any production changes or upgrades/downgrades.

• Establish and Test Restoration Plans: Have a clear plan for data restoration and regularly test your backups to ensure they are complete and viable.

3. Change Management

• Implement Formal Change Management: All server configuration changes should follow a documented change management process.

• Maintain Accurate Records: Keep precise records of when and why changes were made to facilitate faster issue diagnosis.

• Automate Deployments: Utilize automation and orchestration for repeatable and consistent server deployments and testing, including system provisioning.

4. Production Controls

• Dedicated Servers: Avoid running other workloads on database servers to prevent resource contention.

• Understand Isolation and Control Requirements: Before deployment, clearly define workload, data isolation, and audit control requirements.

5. Testing

• Pre-Production Validation: Validate servers thoroughly before exposing them to production workloads and data.

• Prevent Unconfigured Access: Restrict access to servers until they are fully configured and validated.

• Assess Key Details: During validation, assess server capacity, security configuration and hardening, tuning for initial data loads versus production workloads, and alignment with business requirements.

6. Updates

• Stay Informed: Keep aware of new MariaDB releases, including critical security fixes, by subscribing to MariaDB Product Notifications.

• Follow Enterprise Lifecycle: If using MariaDB Enterprise Server, adhere to its enterprise lifecycle for updates and upgrades.

7. Obtaining Support

• Utilize Commercial Support: For comprehensive technical support and services, consider engaging with MariaDB Corporation's commercial support. Existing customers can access assistance via the MariaDB Customer Portal.

This guide provides a high-level overview. For more in-depth information, refer to the official MariaDB documentation on best practices.