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You'll want to have the MySQL server(s) physically located right there
next to the web servers for best performance. That gives a "database
as a service" a major disadvantage if it will be used much. If you just
wanted to STORE a lot of data in a database that didn't get used much
we could set you up on some special systems we have for doing something
similar. Assuming the database will be actively used, your best option is
probably to get your web host or an outside sysadmin such as myself to
set it up for you and provide the layer of "the customer pays for storage
and queries with no worries about how it works".
You mentioned mega speced machines. I should mention that certain database
design decisions, like what indexes to use, can easily make a database ten
times faster or slower, as can the way that the most frequently used queries
are crafted, so check on that stuff before spending big bucks on hardware.
The same database may well run faster on a 500 Mhz Pentium when properly
indexed than it does on a 4 GHz P4 without the right indexes. (My office
has servers with P300, P667, and quad core 3.2GHz CPUs.) After the database
is optimized, get lots and lots of RAM and a good sysadmin can set you up
a great SQL server that will "just work" without you having to worry about it
any further.
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