Quickstart

The MariaDB Cloud database deployment time varies: a Serverless instance is ready in seconds, while a Provisioned database may take a few minutes. You can deploy on AWS, GCP, or Azure across nearly 50 global regions.

You can provision a database in three ways:

MariaDB Cloud Portal: Use a web browser to launch services with a few clicks.
DBaaS API: Use a REST client for programmatic control.
Terraform Provider: Use infrastructure-as-code to manage your database.

This quickstart guide will walk you through using the Portal.

Step 1: Register for MariaDB Cloud

Go to app.skysql.com to sign up. You can sign up using your Google, Github or LinkedIn credentials. Or, just use your Email address to sign up.

Step 2: Launch a Service

Log in to the MariaDB Cloud Portal and from the Dashboard, click the + Launch New Service button.
From the launch interface, select the choices detailed below.
- Choose between Provisioned or Serverless: Options include MariaDB Server with Replicas, MariaDB Server Single Node, or MariaDB Serverless Single Node.
- Select your cloud provider and region:
  - AWS with Ohio, USA (us-east-2)
  - Google Cloud with Iowa, USA (us-central1)
  - Or choose a region of your preference.
- Service Naming: Name the service "quickstart-1" or retain the suggested service name.
- Click the Launch Service button.
For additional information on available selections, see "Service Launch".
You will then be redirected to the Dashboard. If you choose a Serverless deployment, your service will be in a 'Healthy' state and ready for use. For other deployment types, the service will initially be in a 'Creating' state. Please wait until it transitions to a 'Healthy' state before proceeding to the next step. Typically, launching a new Provisioned database takes about 5 minutes or less.

Step 3: Observe, Scale

Monitoring

You can monitor all the important database and OS metrics from the dashboard. The monitoring UI also allows you to view, download any/all logs - error, info or Audit logs.

Basic status is shown on the Dashboard.

To see expanded status and metrics information:

From the Dashboard, click on the service name. (This is "quickstart-1" if you used the suggested name.)
From the Monitoring Dashboard, you can choose to view service (Service Overview) or server details from the navigation tabs.
Specific views are provided for different sets of metrics. These views can be accessed using the buttons in the upper-right corner. From the service overview, views include Status, Lags, Queries, Database and System.

Monitoring Dashboard

Scaling

MariaDB Cloud features automatic rule-based scaling (Autonomous) and manual on-demand scaling.

Note: Scaling is not applicable to Serverless deployments.

With automatic scaling, node count (horizontal) and node size (vertical) changes can be triggered based on load. Additionally, storage capacity expansion can be triggered based on usage. These Autonomous features are opt-in. For additional information, see "Autonomous".

Autonomous

With manual scaling, you can perform horizontal scaling (In/Out), vertical scaling (Up/Down), and storage expansion on-demand using Self-Service Operations. For additional information, see "Self-Service Operations".

Self-Service Scaling of Nodes

Step 4: Tear-Down

When you are done with your testing session, you can stop the service. When a service is stopped, storage charges continue to accrue, but compute charges pause until the service is started again.

When you are done with testing, you can delete the service.

Stopping, starting, and deleting a service are examples of Self-Service Operations that you can perform through the Portal.