PolarDB:Custom purchase

Prerequisites

You have registered and logged on to an Alibaba Cloud account. For more information, see Register and log on to an Alibaba Cloud account.

Procedure

1. Go to the PolarDB cluster custom purchase page.

2. Configure the cluster basic configurations based on your business requirements. The following table describes the parameters.

   Parameter	Description
   Billing Method	Subscription: a prepaid model where you select resources of fixed specifications and pay upfront when you create a cluster. The longer the subscription duration, the greater the discount. This method is suitable for businesses with stable and long-term resource needs. Pay-as-you-go: a postpaid model where you select resources of fixed specifications but do not need to pay upfront when you create a cluster. Billing is based on your actual resource usage. This method is suitable for businesses with flexible or variable resource demands. Serverless: a postpaid model where you do not need to select resources of fixed specifications or pay upfront when you create a cluster. PolarDB automatically scales resources based on the workload demands. This method is applicable to businesses with fluctuating or unpredictable workloads. Note For a detailed comparison of billing methods, see Billing methods. Billing method conversion rules: PolarDB supports the conversion of billing methods between Subscription and pay-as-you-go. However, it does not support the conversion of the serverless billing method to any other billing method.
   Region	A region refers to the geographic area where a data center is located, typically defined by the city where the data center is located. Note Selecting a region close to your location can reduce network latency. After a cluster is purchased, you cannot change the region. We recommend that you create the PolarDB cluster and the ECS instance from which you connect to the cluster in the same region. This allows them to communicate through the internal network (private network), ensuring maximum performance and efficiency.
   Creation Method	PolarDB supports multiple creation methods. By default, the Create Primary Cluster option is selected, which creates a new PolarDB cluster. Other options include: Create Secondary Cluster: Creates a secondary cluster for a Global Database Network (GDN). Before adding a secondary cluster, you must first create a GDN. Upgrade/Migrate from PolarDB: Suitable for major version upgrades between different database engine versions or different editions. This involves full data replication from the source PolarDB cluster, followed by incremental synchronization. For more information, see Major version upgrades. Migrate From RDS: Suitable for migrating an RDS instance to a PolarDB cluster. During the migration process, the system automatically synchronizes the accounts, databases, IP whitelists, and necessary parameter configurations of the RDS instance to the destination PolarDB cluster. To reduce migration complexity and ensure a smooth business transition, you can choose to retain the original database endpoints. For more information, see Upgrade an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance to a PolarDB for MySQL cluster. Note The list of available RDS instances excludes read-only instances and instances that use non-InnoDB engines. Clone From RDS: allows you to quickly create a PolarDB cluster that is an exact replica of a selected RDS instance. This method does not synchronize incremental data from the RDS instance to the PolarDB cluster. For more information, see Clone an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance to a PolarDB for MySQL cluster. Note The list of available RDS instances excludes read-only instances and instances that use non-InnoDB engines. Restore From Recycle: allows you to restore a released PolarDB cluster from the cluster recycle bin by using the cluster backup sets stored in the recycle bin. Note If the original PolarDB cluster has X-Engine enabled and contains corresponding database tables, you must set Storage Engine to InnoDB & X-Engine. Otherwise, the new PolarDB cluster cannot access the data in X-Engine.
   Database Engine	Select a MySQL-compatible version. MySQL 8.0.2: Fully compatible with community MySQL 8.0.18 and earlier versions. MySQL 8.0.1: Fully compatible with community MySQL 8.0.13 and earlier versions. MySQL 5.7: Fully compatible with community MySQL 5.7. MySQL 5.6: Fully compatible with community MySQL 5.6. Note The available features vary based on database engine versions. For more information, see Features in PolarDB for MySQL 5.6, 5.7, and 8.0.
   Database Edition	Valid values: Enterprise Edition and Standard Edition. Note The available features vary based on database editions. For more information, see Differences between Enterprise Edition and Standard Edition.
   Edition	Enterprise Edition supports Cluster Edition and Multi-master Cluster (Limitless) Edition. This option is not available for Standard Edition. Note The two editions have different architectures and application scenarios. For more information, see Editions.
   Specification	Valid values: Dedicated Specification and General Specification: Dedicated Specification: The cluster has exclusive use of the allocated computing resources, such as CPUs, and does not share them with other clusters hosted on the same server. This ensures stable and reliable performance. General Specification: The cluster shares idle computing resources, such as CPUs, with other clusters hosted on the same server. This optimizes cost efficiency. For a detailed comparison between the two specification types, see Comparison between general-purpose and dedicated compute nodes.
   CPU Architecture	Valid values: X86 and ARM. x86: The x86 architecture powered by Intel processors and high-performance networking capabilities delivers comprehensive performance and stability enhancements. It is ideal for enterprise-level applications that require high business stability and computing power. ARM: The ARM architecture equipped with Alibaba Cloud's proprietary YiTian 710 processor chips and 25 GE intelligent high-speed network cards provides robust computing power and high-performance networking capabilities. It can address the needs of public service sectors and enterprises, such as Internet companies, that require cost-effective, secure, and stable cloud services. Note The value is fixed to X86 for Enterprise Edition clusters.
   Primary Zone	A zone refers to a physically isolated area within a region that has independent power and network resources. There are no significant difference between different zones. You can choose to create the PolarDB cluster and the ECS instance in the same zone or in different zones.
   Network Type	The value is fixed to VPC. We recommend that you select the same virtual private cloud (VPC) as that of the ECS instance from which you want to connect to the PolarDB cluster. This way, they can communicate through the internal network (private network) to ensure optimal cluster performance. If you have created a VPC that meets your network requirements, you can directly select that VPC. If you have not created a VPC that meets your network requirements, you can use the default VPC and vSwitch. Note If the default VPC and vSwitch do not meet your requirements, you can choose to create a VPC and a vSwitch.
   Add To Whitelist	We recommend that you Enable this option to add the CIDR blocks of the selected VPC to the whitelists of the PolarDB cluster. This allows ECS instances in the same VPC to directly access the PolarDB cluster, eliminating the need to manually add whitelist entries after cluster creation.
   High-availability Mode	PolarDB provides multiple high availability modes. After you enable the hot standby storage cluster feature for a PolarDB cluster, a hot standby storage cluster is created in the secondary zone of the region in which the PolarDB cluster resides or in a different data center in the same zone. The hot standby storage cluster has independent storage resources. Whether the hot standby storage cluster has independent compute resources varies based on the high availability mode. When the PolarDB cluster in the primary zone fails, the hot standby storage cluster immediately takes over and handles read and write operations and storage tasks. Note For more information about the hot standby storage cluster and related solutions, see High availability modes (hot standby clusters). Rules for changing high availability modes: You cannot directly change the high availability mode of a cluster from Double Zones (Hot Standby Storage Cluster Enabled) or Double Zones (Hot Standby Storage and Compute Clusters Enabled) to Single Zone (Hot Standby Storage Cluster Disabled). For such change of the high availability mode, we recommend that you purchase a new cluster and select the Single Zone (Hot Standby Storage Cluster Disabled) high availability mode for the cluster. Then, migrate the existing cluster to the new cluster by using Data Transmission Service (DTS). For information about how to migrate an existing cluster to a new cluster, see Migrate data between PolarDB for MySQL clusters. You can select the Three Zones high availability mode only when you purchase a new cluster. You cannot change the high availability mode of a cluster from Three Zones to other high availability modes and vice versa. You can manually change the high availability mode of a cluster from Single Zone (Hot Standby Storage Cluster Disabled) to a different high availability mode. For more information, see High availability modes (hot standby clusters).
   Resource scaling range (available for a serverless cluster)	You can set the resource scaling range only when you set Billing Method to Serverless. Minimum Read-only Nodes: the minimum number of read-only nodes that can be added. Valid values: 0 to 15. Maximum Read-only Nodes: the maximum number of read-only nodes that can be added. Valid values: 0 to 15. Note The number of read-only nodes automatically increases or decreases within the specified range based on the actual workloads. For more information, see Scaling. To ensure high availability of serverless clusters, we recommend that you set Minimum Read-only Nodes to 1. Minimum PCUs per Node: the minimum number of PCUs per node in the cluster. Valid values: 0.25 PCU to 31 PCUs. Maximum PCUs per Node: the maximum number of PCUs per node in the cluster. Valid values: 1 PCU to 32 PCUs. Note PCUs are the unit for second-level billing and resource scaling for the serverless feature. One PCU is approximately equal to 1 core and 2 GB of memory The PCUs of a node is dynamically adjusted within the specified range based on the workloads. The minimum granularity for scaling is 0.5 PCUs. Example: If you set the Minimum PCUs per Node parameter to 2 PCUs and the Maximum PCUs per Node parameter to 16 PCUs, the default specifications of a node in the serverless cluster are 2 PCUs (2 CPU cores and 4 GB memory). When the business load increases, the system automatically increases the number of PCUs of the primary node or read-only nodes. However, the maximum number of PCUs can only be increased to 16 PCUs (16 CPU cores and 32 GB memory) based on the settings.
   Current Specification	The various specifications differ in CPU, memory, maximum storage capacity, and IOPS. Select the specifications based on your business requirements. Note The available compute node specifications vary based on Database Edition. For more information, see Compute node specifications of PolarDB for MySQL Enterprise Edition and Compute node specifications of PolarDB for MySQL Standard Edition.
   Enable Serverless	You can enable the serverless feature for a fixed-specification PolarDB cluster. After the serverless feature is enabled, the cluster can scale up and down its resources in response to the system's workload. However, this introduces scale-up fees. Note By default, the maximum and minimum PCUs per node of aserverless cluster is 8 and 0, respectively. The maximum read-only nodes and minimum read-only nodes are 1 and 0, respectively. You can adjust these parameters on the basic information page of the cluster.
   Nodes	By default, the cluster has two nodes: one primary node and one read-only node. You can configure the nodes based on your business requirements. Note You can configure multiple primary nodes only for Multi-master Cluster (Limitless) Enterprise Edition clusters. For other clusters, you can configured only one primary node. The single-node edition is no longer available, but you can purchase a single-node PolarDB cluster by setting the number of Read-only Nodes to 0. If you set the number of read-only nodes to 1 or more when purchasing a cluster, you cannot change the number of read-only nodes to 0 after purchase. If you need to change the number of read-only nodes in an existing cluster to 0, we recommend that you purchase a new cluster and migrate the data from the original cluster to the new cluster by using a migration tool such as DTS or through the major version upgrade feature. Node types: Primay Node: Also known as read/write node, it handles write operations and some read operations. It works with read-only nodes to provide high availability for the database by using an active-active failover mechanism. Read-only Node: handles read operations to reduce the load on the primary node, providing high availability and scalability. You can dynamically adjust the number of read-only nodes based on your business requirements after creating a cluster. Read-only Column Store Node: a functional node for the IMCI feature that uses column store technology to accelerate analytical queries (OLAP). A PolarDB for MySQL cluster can use IMCI to achieve integrated real-time transaction processing and real-time data analysis. After you add a read-only IMCI node, configure request distribution among row store and IMCI nodes and create IMCIs for business tables. Then, OLAP query requests are automatically routed to read-only row store nodes or read-only column store nodes instead of being sent to the primary node.
   PolarProxy Type	Valid values: Standard Enterprise and Dedicated Enterprise. The PolarProxy type varies based on the cluster specification type. The PolarProxy type is Standard Enterprise when the cluster specification type is General Specification and is Dedicated Enterprise when the cluster specification type is Dedicated Specification. PolarProxy specifications can be configured, with options ranging from 4C to 16C (4 vCPUs to 16 vCPUs). We recommend you you select automatic matching. Note This configuration is supported only for clusters of Standard Edition.
   Storage Type	PolarDB supports ESSD, PSL4, or PSL5 storage types. ESSD is only available for Standard Edition clusters. ESSDs are ultra-high performance disks developed by Alibaba Cloud. ESSDs use a next-generation distributed block storage architecture and support 25 Gigabit Ethernet networks and Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA). Each ESSD has low one-way latency and can deliver up to 1 million random read/write IOPS. ESSDs are divided into the following categories: PL0 ESSD: A PL0 ESSD delivers the basic performance of an ESSD. PL1 ESSD: A PL1 ESSD delivers IOPS that is five times that delivered by a PL0 ESSD and throughput that is approximately twice that delivered by the PL0 ESSD. PL2 ESSD: A PL2 ESSD delivers IOPS and throughput that are approximately twice the IOPS and throughput delivered by a PL1 ESSD. PL3 ESSD: A PL3 ESSD delivers IOPS that is up to ten times that delivered by a PL2 ESSD and throughput that is up to five times that delivered by the PL2 ESSD. The ESSDs are suitable for business scenarios in which highly concurrent requests must be processed with high I/O performance and at low read and write latencies. ESSD AutoPL disk: Compared with an ESSD at one of the preceding PLs, an ESSD AutoPL disk decouples IOPS and storage, gives you the flexibility to configure IOPS and storage, and allows you to make some adjustments as needed. This reduces the overall Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Important For more information about the performance of ESSDs, see ESSDs. After an ESSD runs out of its storage space, it is locked and can handle only read operations. To prevent storage capacity issues from disrupting your business operations, you can enable automatic storage scaling for ESSDs. PSL4 and PSL5 are storage types provided by PolarDB for different business scenarios. The following table describes their differences. Storage type Feature Scenario PSL5 PSL5 is the storage type supported by historical versions of PolarDB and the default storage type for PolarDB clusters purchased before June 7, 2022. It delivers higher performance, reliability, and availability. Scenarios that require high performance and reliability and use databases as the core of business systems, such as the finance, e-commerce, and public service sectors, and large and medium-sized Internet services. PSL4 PSL4 is a new storage type introduced by PolarDB. It uses the Alibaba-developed Smart-SSD technology to compress and decompress data at the physical SSD disk level. It reduces the storage price without compromising performance. Scenarios where cost-effectiveness is prioritized. Note Storage type conversion rules: Specific product series support storage type upgrade from PSL4 to PSL5. PSL5 storage cannot be downgraded to PSL4 storage. If you need to use PSL4 storage while the cluster uses PSL5 storage, we recommend that you purchase a new cluster and migrate data from the original cluster to the new cluster by using a migration tool (such as DTS) or the major version upgrade feature.
   Storage Engine	Valid values: InnoDB and InnoDB & X-Engine. Note InnoDB & X-Engine: A hybrid engine that combines InnoDB and X-Engine. If you select this option, you can specify the memory usage ratio for the X-Engine. For more information, see X-Engine.
   Storage Billing Method	Valid values: Pay-as-you-go and Subscription. Pay-as-you-go: You do not need to specify a storage capacity when you purchase the cluster. The storage space of the cluster automatically expands as the cluster data grows. You are only charged based on the actual amount of storage space occupied by your data. Subscription: You need to prepay for the storage space of the cluster when you purchase the cluster. Note This option is available only when you set Billing Method to Subscription.
   Storage Capacity	The storage space size that you want to purchase. Note This configuration is required only: The storage type is ESSD. The cluster and storage use the subscription billing method.

3. (Optional) Configure advanced options.

   Parameter	Description
   Cluster Name	Configure a cluster name. You can customize the name based on your business requirements. If you do not specify a custom name, the system automatically generates one for you. After the cluster is created, you can modify the cluster name if needed. The cluster name must meet the following requirements: It cannot start with http:// or https://. It must be 2 to 256 characters in length.
   Resource Group	Select a resource group from the created resource groups. Note A resource group is a collection of related resources belonging to an Alibaba Cloud account. Resource groups allow for centralized management of resources. A resource can belong only to only one resource group. For more information, see Classify resources into resource groups and grant permissions on the resource groups.
   Parameter Templates	The parameter template for the cluster. You can select a system-defined parameter template or create a custom parameter template. Note The parameter template dropdown list displays all custom or system default parameter templates in the current region.
   Time Zone	The time zone of the cluster. The default time zone is UTC+08:00.
   Table Name Case Sensitivity	Specify whether table names in the cluster are case-sensitive. By default, table names are case-insensitive. Note If your on-premises database is case-sensitive, we recommend that you select Case-sensitive to ensure consistency and facilitate smooth data migration. You cannot change this setting after the cluster is created. Exercise caution when configuring this parameter.
   Release Cluster	The backup retention policy applied when the cluster is released. Retain Last Automatic Backup (Automatic Backup Before Release) (Default): When the cluster is released, the most recent backup is retained in the cluster recycle bin. You are charged for the corresponding backup storage fees. Retain All Backups: When the cluster is deleted (released), all backups are retained in the cluster recycle bin. You are charged for the corresponding backup storage fees. Delete All Backups (Cannot Be Restored): When the cluster is deleted (released), all data, including all backups, are permanently deleted and cannot be recovered. No further fees are charged.
   Enable TDE	You can directly enable transparent data encryption (TDE) without the need to separately enable it after the cluster is created. Note After TDE is enabled, you cannot disable it. TDE relies on the Key Management Service (KMS). After enabling TDE, you need to configure a service role and grant PolarDB to access KMS. After TDE is enabled, PolarDB encrypts the cluster data files, which is transparent to business access. However, this may result in a 5% to 10% performance loss.

4. On the right side of the page, verify the purchase quantity and cluster configuration. If you confirm the details, purchase the cluster.

   Parameter	Description
   Quantity	Set the number of clusters you want to purchase. Note You can create up to 50 clusters in a single operation, which is particularly useful in scenarios where multiple clusters are needed quickly, such as when launching multiple game servers simultaneously. You can purchase a maximum of 50 clusters with your Alibaba Cloud account.
   Duration	Select the subscription duration of the cluster. Note This option is available only if you set Billing Method to Subscription. Pay-as-you-go clusters do not support this option.
   Auto-renewal	Specify whether to enable auto-renewal of your subscription. To minimize the risk of business disruptions caused by expired subscriptions, we recommend that you enable auto-renewal. Note This option is available only if you set Billing Method is set to Subscription. Pay-as-you-go clusters do not support this option. You can configure auto-renewal not only when purchasing a cluster, but also afterwards in the Billing and Cost console.

   After configuring the preceding information, carefully review the cluster configuration and payment amount on the page, and read the terms of service. If all the information is accurate and you agree to the terms of service, click Buy Now.

5. After you complete the payment, wait 10 to 15 minutes for the system to create the cluster. Then, you can view the newly created cluster in the cluster list in the PolarDB console.

   Note

   • If specific nodes in the cluster are in the Creating state, the cluster is being created and is unavailable. The cluster is available only when the cluster is in the Running state.

   • Make sure that you select the region where the cluster is deployed to view it in the PolarDB console. Otherwise, you cannot find the cluster.

What to do next

Connect to a database

Related API operations

In addition to creating clusters in the PolarDB console, you can also create clusters by using API operations. The following table lists the relevant API operations.