M/DB support in SimpleDB Management Tools and LightSpeed

Tagged as LightSpeed, SimpleDB Management Tools

Amazon’s SimpleDB cloud database is cool, but it’s not the ideal platform for development and testing — it can be a pain having to go all the way to Amazon for each test, it’s not very convenient to set up isolated instances for each developer, and the “eventual consistency” behaviour of SimpleDB makes verifying updates unreliable.

Fortunately, MGateway Developments have a free, “plug-compatible” alternative called M/DB, which not only allows you to have local test versions of SimpleDB but can also be used in production to break through some of SimpleDB’s limitations. It’s provided as a handy virtual appliance, which makes it a snap to set up locally.

We’ve now updated LightSpeed and SimpleDB Management Tools to support M/DB. In SimpleDB Management Tools, you now can supply a URL to a M/DB instance. You can then work with that instance in Server Explorer and the Query window just as you now do with the Amazon service. You can set up connections to multiple M/DB instances and have them alongside your connection to Amazon itself.

In LightSpeed, we’ve added elements to the connection string to allow you to override the default Amazon URL and point to a M/DB instance instead. Simply add the following element to your connection string:

Url=http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/mdb/request.mgwsi

and you’ll be good to go.

If you want to try out LightSpeed against M/DB, grab the latest nightly from here or from the store.

To get the updated version of SimpleDB Management Tools, go here for the free edition or to the store for the unlimited edition.

UPDATE: In the M/DB “virtual appliance” (build 21) there were some compatibility issues noted in an earlier version of this post. These issues are now fixed but you will need to download and install M/DB build 26 or above to make it work seamlessly with LightSpeed and SimpleDB Management Tools.

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Posted by Ivan Towlson on 17 May 2009

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