Update: It Actually Should Be LEPP Not LEMP or LAMP!

In several recent posts: It’s LEMP not LAMP! and Amazon EC2 Shoutout! I’ve discussed how I switched from a shared hosting account with GoDaddy to a dedicated Micro instance with Amazon.  At the same time I decided to go out and try nginx (pronounced Engine-X) and remove Apache from the equation.

This saw some incredible results.  However, several times since switching I’ve run into several database issues where it appears Mysql runs out of memory!  Performing a top command shows over 15 mysql processes running at anyone giving time each taking up to 10% of the memory.  On a micro instance I only get 600mb, so this adds up quickly!

I’ve been told now by several people about Percona.  This is a company that has dedicated themselves to making Mysql more performant over the past 6 years.  It’s quite a beautiful thing, it actually installs and runs Mysql; however, it’s performed all of those necessary tweaks for you without requiring you to be a DBA (database administrator).

So I suppose at the end of the day it really still is LEMP or LAMP, but I’m going to go out on a limb and start giving Percona some credit – perhaps it should be LEMPP or LAMPP?

After installing Percona, I was able to free up over 100mb of memory; a very much needed 100mb as I was running with less than 40mb available.

Thanks Percona!

Fyi if you wish to install this, on my Ubuntu box I ran into a couple of quick snags because I already had mysql server and mysql client installed.  I simply had to remove this with apt-get remove and I was then able to install Percona as instructed.

The beauty part was because it leverages mysql I didn’t have to do a single thing!  All of my databases were still there and running.