Is it possible to use MemSQL for development and staging pre-production?
If we have a cluster in production, we also need MemSQL available in pre-production, available to the build servers for integration testing, and locally for developers for remote testing and dev work.
Do we need to pay per docker instance to do this? Do we pay per developer and per build server? Do we just sign up for as many free tier accounts as we need?
If we were using something like mysql or mariadb we would just have these installed on the servers they need to be, locally in docker containers or remote in pre-production environments. Running different databases in different environments is not an option because MemSQL migrations require custom DDL.
You can use MemSQL for free (for development or production) as long as the usage is 4 units or less (where a unit is leaf node with 8vCPU and 32 GB of RAM). You can have more than one free tier cluster using the same license.
For local development where you only need to do functional testing (and not performance) the easiest thing to use is our docker container. Instructions for downloading and use it are here: SingleStoreDB Cloud ยท SingleStore Documentation.
For development and pre-prod you can use the free tier license as long as you can stay under the 4 unit limit. If you need a larger cluster or you want support you will need to purchase an enterprise license.
Another option for remote pre-production environments is to use our managed service Helios where you can spin up MemSQL clusters and pay on demand (calculated based on hourly usage and billed monthly). That is a good choice especially for temporary clusters.