Product editions

Cluster Edition uses an architecture where computing is decoupled from storage. The number of database compute nodes can be dynamically scaled from 2 up to 16. All compute nodes are dedicated nodes. Therefore, resources are isolated among the nodes. The PolarDB for MySQL database engine consists of multiple database nodes. PolarProxy works as a database proxy and is deployed on top of the database engine. PolarProxy supports features such as read/write splitting and load balancing. PolarDB for MySQL PolarProxy provides 2 to 10 cluster endpoints. The dynamic scaling of storage capacity in Cluster Edition does not affect your services. Each cluster supports a maximum of 100 TB storage. You are charged for the storage that you use. For more information, see Billable items. Cluster Edition allows you to deploy a cluster across multiple zones and perform a failover across zones. If a zone becomes unavailable, you can switch database services to another zone within minutes. For more information, see Deploy a cluster across zones and change the primary zone. Cluster Edition also supports the dynamic scale-out and scale-in of multiple nodes. It requires only about 5 minutes to add nodes for horizontal scaling. This does not affect your services. For more information, see Add or remove read-only nodes.

For more information about Cluster Edition, see Architecture.

Cluster Edition is the recommended product edition of PolarDB for MySQL. It supports features such as fast data backup, Restore data, and Global Database Network (GDN) free of charge. It also supports elastic scaling and parallel queries for enterprises. We recommend that you use this edition in your production environments.

Cluster Edition supports the following kernel versions: PolarDB for MySQL 5.6, 5.7, and 8.0.

Cluster Edition supports eight dedicated node specifications. For more information, see Billable items.

Single Node uses nodes of the burstable performance type and shares resources in a computing resource pool. This improves computing resource usage. The architecture of Single Node also saves resource costs because no proxy is required. Similar to Cluster Edition, dynamic scaling of storage capacity in Single Node does not affect your services. You are charged for the storage that you use. PolarDB clusters of the Single Node edition do not synchronize logs. This reduces the overhead of synchronizing and parsing redo logs, and improves performance.

Single Node is cost-effective and is the optimal choice for testing and personal use. This edition can be used by startups as the starter product.

Single Node supports three kernel versions: PolarDB for MySQL 5.6, 5.7, and 8.0.

Single Node supports only the node specification of 4-Core 8 GB (Burstable Performance). For more information, see Billable items.

Archive Database provides a high compression ratio and uses X-Engine as the default storage engine. PolarDB Archive Database provides a large storage capacity and allows you to store archived data at a low cost. X-Engine uses log-structured merge-tree (LSM tree) and the Zstandard (ZSTD) data compression algorithm to increase the data compression ratio. Compared with InnoDB, X-Engine allows you to save up to 70% on storage space. By default, a Archive Database cluster uses one dedicated node. This saves the costs on PolarProxy and reduces the overhead for synchronizing redo logs. However, Archive Database has limits, especially the limits on the compatibility with MySQL. This is because X-Engine has some limits on features. For more information, see Limits.

Archive Database is used to store archived data and provides a high data compression ratio. It is applicable to services that do not have high requirements for computing but need to store archived data, such as DingTalk messages.

Only PolarDB for MySQL 8.0 is supported.

Archive Database supports seven dedicated node specifications. For more information, see Billable items.

• Clone a cluster. For more information, see Clone a cluster.

  Edition		Destination cluster
  		Cluster Edition	Single Node	Archive Database
  Source cluster	Cluster Edition	Supported	Not supported	Not supported
  	Single Node	Not supported	Supported	Not supported
  	Archive Database	Not supported	Not supported	Supported

• Restore a cluster from the recycle bin. For more information, see Cluster recycle bin.

  Edition		New cluster
  		Cluster Edition	Single Node	Archive Database
  Deleted cluster	Cluster Edition	Supported	Not supported	Not supported
  	Single Node	Available soon	Available soon	Not supported
  	Archive Database	Not supported	Not supported	Available soon

• Migrate data from ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL. For more information, see Create a PolarDB for MySQL cluster from an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance.

  Edition		New cluster
  		Cluster Edition	Single Node	Archive Database
  ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL	Basic Edition	Available soon	Available soon	Not supported
  	High-availability Edition	Supported	Not supported	Not supported
  	Enterprise Edition	Not supported	Not supported	Not supported

• Clone data from ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL. For more information, see Create a PolarDB for MySQL cluster by using the Clone from RDS method.

  Edition		New cluster
  		Cluster Edition	Single Node	Archive Database
  ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL	Basic Edition	Available soon	Available soon	Not supported
  	High-availability Edition	Supported	Supported	Not supported
  	Enterprise Edition	Not supported	Not supported	Not supported

Single Node and Archive Database are database products that provide specific services based on a single compute node. However, Single Node and Archive Database can ensure high service availability and high data reliability by using new technologies, such as computing scheduling within seconds and distributed multi-replica storage.