Oracle's own planned NoSQL access for future editions of MySQL would draw heavily from HandlerSocket, though it would stick more closely to the Memecached API, Ulin said.

In a different project, Oracle developers have also devised a similar Memecached setup for MySQL Cluster, the fault-tolerant edition of MySQL designed to run across multiple servers.

At the NoSQL Now conference, held last month in San Jose, Oracle MySQL developer John David Duncan outlined a number of earlier attempts to provide alternative non-SQL access to MySQL Cluster, including the Java-based ClusterJ and a JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)-based module called mod_ndb. Both of these approaches were cumbersome, whereas the Memcached API seems to provide a natural wrapper for the MySQL, he noted. Currently the company offers a preview edition of MySQL Cluster version 7.2 with a Memcached interface.

"We thought any MySQL Cluster can natively provide performance that is closer to Memcached than MySQL server," he said. The cluster in fact provides a way of making the Memchached cache persistent, meaning it will not disappear should the servers lose power. "We can achieve the performance you would expect from Memcached," he said.

The IDG News Service