I wish aMember should support other databases also, specially GRE SQL? Reason After years of experience with MySQL databases, on shared servers, where everybody is using MySQL, the server stability is a BIG concern. Problems like MySQL server becomes unstable, times out, or too many connection errors etc., are so often that it becomes nightmare to maintain a reasonable level of service, if your site uses dymanic contents (PHP+MySQL). Any newbie on your shared server can bring MySQL server easily down. One of my site using aMember, has thousands of users and thousands of records in amember_payment table. I have tried using different web hosting companies also, but MySQL server problem is always there. Where every body is using MySQL, if you are using a different database engine, you will not be affected by others' mistakes. I have seen that in most cases, actual server and apache are working fine, serving static pages; it is only MySQL server that creates problems. More and more people are turning towards other databases, who need more stability and many of the ecommerce applications now support other databases using database abstraction layer, with the help of XML. I am not an experienced programer, but feel that Alex can add this feature easily, because all of aMember queries are present in one file only. Please share your thoughts!
Hi, As a database system, I find mysql to be fine and also works for a few millions of records very good, provided certain things are taken care of like query optimization, cache, config tuning, etc. You may find an excellent performance on a physical server or atleast on a virtual server. So if I have to switch over to a better database system + language, I would go for c++, Java beans, J2EE, Oracle, etc and that would already mean an enterprise solution. Here using amember we ARE NOT talking of an enterprise solution. So for this mysql is fine. Here, I mean enterprise solution would already mean kind of 500 - 2000 concorrent connections. For this Java/J2EE/JDBC would be excellent. A change in this regards would costs quite a lot of production investment and I have really doubts if it would be worth spending atleast 20.000 - 50.000 dollars on it...
Perhaps you missed the whole point why I asked for it. I am talking about shared server environment, where so many web sites are hosted and most of the problems are due to faults of other people, it may be a faulty script, unoptimized queries, persistent connections etc. The only point of failure in most cases is MySQL server. If I am using a different database system, it will save my day. Here is a link that might put some light on PostgreSQL: http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci1172668,00.html
Hi! Perhaphs I did not mention the prices of a virtual server. If you are talking about a shared environment, then I assume that there is not much money coming in or the business it not really that important for generating income. The shared env. will not ofer the performance, which is exactly you you complaining. It is therefore, I suggest to change your account to a virtual server. The price of a virtual server with a dedicated IP address is US $5.00. There you will have a dedicated mysql deamon which will not crash. So the problem you describe will never occur. Regardless of everything, I advice you to change to a virtual server, if you can manage the server and know some very basics or administration.
Unfortunately, it is not quick to make aMember working with other databases, specially because MySQL-specific SQL queries are used somewhere, so we don't plan to support other database. To explain my point of view. We are in this market since 2003, there are thousands installations of aMember in the world. And you are third (!) customer asking about other database support. So if we do that, we will get a rarely used, but very complex and not well-tested feature.