All posts by Ruturaj Vartak

Biking

Bhandardara Bike Ride

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Not always you hit the dirt and get to breeze past cold mountain wind
Not everytime a tired body is nourished by soothing calm water
Not always a tired soul is cheered by nature

But with a comparatively cold January end of 2010, and with the roaring bikes over the silky smooth roads; The above always tends to be true.

Bhandardara

Jan 30, 2010
The wait is over, I could barely sleep with all the excitement of filling my Unicorn to the brim for the day’s ride to Bhandardara. Rajo too couldn’t keep with the excitement, he was already @ Khar station while I was having my bath. I took off with my now ‘heavy’ bike with Rajo to Mulund Check naka where I was to meet Danny (Dinesh) and another of his friend.

Danny was late, he was treading through Aarey colony while we were already closing in on Godrej Soaps near Vikhroli. I decided to use the extra time to start off with my Canon PowerShot S3IS. A few snaps of the bike, the riders and the Vikhroli sun rising over the Vikhroli mangroves and we were moving. At the checknaka a few minutes of wait and another biker on a new Red Pulsar 180 came in.

तुम लोग दिनेश के लिए रुके हो क्या?

The biker introduced himself as Rajesh, Dinesh’s friend. We had thought his friend would come in the car accompanying Danny, but bikers can’t be tied down behind those seat belts. Soon BJ-92 was there, Danny’s Turquoise-Green Wagon-R. Next stop was to meet Ankush under Majivda flyover and then head towards the destination of Bhandardara Dam!

Ankush was late, it was almost 9.00am when he made at the junction. Except me and Rajo all were hungry without having any breakfast. So we decided we’d have it on our way and the 2 Pulsars, a Unicorn and a WagonR raced aheads towards Nashik on NH 3 – Mumbai Agra. Soon everybody’s idea was clear, to hit the road hard averaging above 70 kmph. But all of us stayed within visible distance. It was at Kalyan phata near Bhiwandi, we decided that we should have our food by taking a de-tour towards Kalyan.

We found an Udipi Restaurant close by and had our stomachs full with Idlis, Wadas, Upma and Uttapams. The ride for all of us was really fuss free as all our baggage was loaded on the backseat of Danny’s car. From there on, it was just the accelerator, brakes and the clutch working in sync. NH3 is an absolutely fantastic road, negotiating small hills, turns through quite an arid landscape. But the route itself is quite picturesque.

Me and Ankush had adorned our Leather jackets. I was riding around 75kmph few kms ahead of Bhivandi and the overall resultant of the speed and the wind was outdoing the stability of the bike. My jacket was full of air and was fluffed to its extent. Every small gush of wind made me sway, I felt like I was a sail of the bike. At times it was so difficult to move at the speeds that I had to drop the speedometer’s arrow well below 60kmph till the bike was steady enough.

At Shahpur we took a halt for few minutes, took a leak, stretched. And I made sure that I wasn’t carrying along with my jacket. Shoved the piece of leather in Danny’s back side 😛 or his back side of the Car. The speed was much much easier to control then. Moving ahead thru high-class new-age Dhabas with the many times the double-way median-divided road merging into a single one for the other side was being re-laid. We moved on.

Kasara ghat soon was ahead of us, the road now spanned the entire view ahead of us as it slowly started to climb. We took a small halt and had many pictures. There on the most inviting thing for bikers was ahead us, curvy, smooth, grippy roads in the ghats which enabled us speeds upto 50-60kmph. All that I could see myself doing was leaning all the time to adjust the turns and the weight of the bike to help navigate the bends. It was awesome. Ahead I could see Ankush sliding to the either side of the seat like the pros do in MotoGP. As the best things never last long, so did the ghat.

Igatpuri was closing in fast, as he moved towards it, I remembered the road and the small exit for Tringalwadi trek. Everytime me moved closer to Igatpuri we kept a close look on all the milestones and sign-boards to make sure that we don’t miss out on the turn at Ghoti just ahead of Igatpuri. We saw Ghoti (to right) at 3km before which there was an old Toll-naka. Crossing the naka, we saw a right exit where started to change the lanes. Ahead we saw Danny roaring and he missed the turn and went ahead straight! He had missed the turn. We took a right and stopped at a nearby tapri. I called Rajo who was in Danny’s car.

भेंचोड तुमलोग क्या नासिक जाओगे क्या?

अरे !! हमलोग आरहे है

with no shortage of @#$@$! and #$%^@#! other local फोडणी. Soon BJ-92 was standing besides us.

The ride to Bhandardara which was about 20km from Ghoti was not too smooth. First we took a halt @ Ghoti for tea and Parle-G biscuit snack. Then Rajo and Ankush had to withdraw money from the only ATM in the locality. It was Saturday, and the ‘market’ was full! Had to wade through bad traffic to get clear of the village where we met not so inviting roads. A typical State highway with bad patches advancing on the well laid surfaces. The climbing road didn’t help. But somehow we made through the otherwise lovely weather and scenery. It was almost 1.30 when we climbed at the junction to the Bhandardara MTDC resort. Rajo was there with Danny clicking on our entry.

Our first task at hand was to fix up the night’s stay. MTDC was full as expected, but another local closeby ‘lodge’ was cheap and interesting enough to grab our attention. @ Rs. 800 for a room a night with 5 beds was more than a bargain. Next up was food! MTDC Resort had a restaurant, it was 3pm and only thing available was ‘Thali’. Only Rajo had a Non-Veg Thali with कौआ chicken. We wanted some sweet, we ordered 3 dishes of Gulab jamun that we thought we’d share with all. But the sweet-balls were so soft and tender that we ordered more and the whole array of tastes satisfied our tummies’ lust.

It was time for Ankush to sleep and rest since he had come directly from the night shift. But we all decided we could roam around and enjoy the neighbouring landscapes. First stop the Bhandardara dam. Me and Rajo remembered this place where we had enjoyed the August rains during the Hostway Engg. picnic. We crossed the wall and moved along it. The scene on the other side was way too inviting, exceptionally calm waters the 4.00pm’s cool but still warm sun planning to settle in the mountains of Ratangad behind the back waters, everything was perfect for a dip! Rajo shouted to Danny to get the car in the front and get the bags with towels, etc @ the water. A quick change and me and Rajo were swimming in the backwater, I was swimming after more than 2 months or so, Rajo probably more than a half-year since our Andheri Sports complex pool had shutdown due to Mumbai’s water shortage woes. I shouted @ danny to make sure that he didn’t miss out on our snaps while swimming. Danny and Rajesh soon joined us but not for swimming but just till the water was waist high. I then took my chance of snapping these guys in the silhouette with the sun now almost ready with its lovely Orange hues.

All of them dried themselves, Ankush was still laying back on the rock completing his sleep. He too couldn’t miss the lovely sunset. We had decided that it would be better enjoying the sunset over here rather than roaming, finding other places while the sun slid below the earth. Danny was at his best, he was not the one who would miss out on the boat ride. There were 2 boats waiting, one of them a rowing one while the other a motor boat. During the ride, Danny asked one of the two rowers to swap the positions, now Danny was enjoying rowing. We managed to click the final pictures of the diving sun and then returned back to the Room/Hotel.

Danny wanted to enjoy the night around the bonn fire, so @ the hotel Rajo and Dinesh managed to organise a bonn fire near the lake side. For dinner we thought of getting a parcel from the MTDC resort and having it by the bonn fire. The plan didn’t succeed immediately. First the guy who was to manage the bonn fire, said he couldn’t organise for the firewood. So at the restaurant we asked the manager if he had any resources that he could allocate, there was an eager boy standing and rest was easy. However the parcel never came early. It was about 10.15pm when we got the parcel and moved down to the lake’s bank to have food, chaknaa and … Dinesh was hysteric as usual kept saying.

Isn’t it wonderful spending time here in the cold night around the bonn fire and being besides this wonderful lake!?

Raised his glass of pepsi and ‘Cheers’ and he went on :-@

Back @ the room, as we laid the beds, the extra ones had extra amount of dust and smell as well. Dinesh, Rajo and Rajesh decied they’d sleep down while me and Ankush on the bed. The bedsheets were ‘unclean’. That would be the cleanest adjective that I could give. We laid back talking and Danny laughing as loud as he could. One of the adjoining customer actually knocked and said.

भाई सहाब ज़रा आरामसे

We still continued laughing, while Rajo घोडे बेचके सोगया

Back to Mumbai

Jan 31, 2010
It was close to 8.00am when Dinesh rose up with his tall figure and cried

अबे किसीको उठना नही है क्या?

Nobody actually paid any heed, but slowly started rising. I looked out of the window, and there was a lovely mist ahead in the mountains, creating a very distinct layered pattern. This had to come in the camera. We finished our ‘business’, bath and rest other stuff, packed and left the room around 10.30. Checked, cleaned our vehicles and headed back into the market for some नाश्ता. Around 11.am had Misal pav, Vada misal and kanda bhajia at the local restaurant/dhaba in शेंडी (Shendi) or Bhandardara (Bhandardara is alternatively called Shendi).

There on we cross-checked our route to Malshej ghat and back to Mumbai via NH 222. But our first test was to reach NH 222. We were to move straight into the east towards Rajur, take a right for Kotul. As we headed the 11.30-12.00pm sun was not as taxing as we thought. Instead I still remember the cold air gushing inside my T-shirt. The route was partly patched, not excatly a paradise but manageable. The route was a constant hill climb and descend. This is what we had come for. Just 3 bikes and car following in a file on these roads is what etched our memories. But first we had a ghat section of about 3-4 km with very bad roads. At Kotul we checked with the locals for the direction of Malshej ghat and they confirmed that it would be through Oture via Brahmanvadi. The road to Brahamavadi too was a mix of good the bad and the ugly. We reached Brahmanvadi around 12.30pm. Another confirmation of route and little stretching. It was around 15km from here to Oture, the junction of the State Highway and NH 222. Route was on the plains so it was not difficult to ride @ 60kmph. We reached Oture around 1.30pm which was town/village right at NH 222. We decided that we wont’ be having any lunch there as we were yet full from the misal pav. But refreshments couldn’t miss us or vice-versa. We had sugarcane juice and were back burning our engines on the exceptionally smooth NH 222.


Our first stop was Pimplgaon Joga Dam. We moved up into a gorge and looked down below a lovely descending road and right ahead in the very expanse the dam! We halted at Madh for a few snaps and a leak. Just few minutes ahead we saw the famous Khubi Phata, the point where trekkers alight for the famous Konkan Kada and Harishchandragad. For me and Rajo it was something that we knew in the back of our mind. Few weeks earlier we were able to identify it as ‘Khubi Phata’ and not ‘Savarne’ right in the dead of the night around 00.00am. This place always brings back lovely memories of the trek to Harishchandragad. The road now was climbing a little and we soon were in the main Malshej ghat area, we never zoomed our bikes here, rather just rolled it around 40kmph in the topmost gear, Danny even driving with the parking lights on, enjoying the beauty. MTDC resort was on the right. We thought for a moment about lunch but a ‘no’ was vetoed and moved ahead. Next up was the needle point. We parked our vehicles on the highway, while I persuaded Ankush to take the bike to the right end of the needle. The view from the needle was fantastic, with 3 sides blocked by the mountain and the other side a valley. On one end we could see MTDC looking from above. We climbed the needle to make sure we didnt’ miss the shot in the frames.


It was 3.00pm when we finally took off from our last tourist spot. We decided we’d have food at Murbad the next big town/village on our route to Mumbai via Kalyan. The ghat was all descend now, we still continued to descend cruising slowly till we first saw a glimpse of Konkan kada from far away where we took some snaps, and then till Naneghat base. At the base we decided we need to भगाओ our bikes as it was already 3.45 and we were now getting hungry. There on it was averaging 75-80 kmph. Just prior to Murbad me and Anksuh saw some good hotels, but since we had decided to meet @ Murbad bus station on the highway, we moved on. At murbad we didn’t find any good hotels and we rued our opportunity to have food at the hotels before. Then we were moving slowly trying to find a decent dhaba/hotel for our stomachs. But all in-vain. Further me, Ankush and Danny missed Rajesh somewhere and waited for him called him. And he said he already had reached Ulhasnagar thinking that we were ahead of him while we actually waited way behind. He finally met us at Ulhasnagar and we decided to have food at Kalyan as it was starting to get little busy on the streets.

In Kalyan too we couldn’t find a good hotel on our side of the lane, the route towards Mumbai led through the outskirts of Kalyan towards the Bhiwandi-Kalyan phata. Anksuh decided we should have food in the same restaurant where we had our breakfasts the earlier day. At the restaurant, Rawa Dosas, Mysore dosas, uttapam, pav bhaji, grilled sandwiches, etc were ordered everybody pouncing on whatever they could manage, it reminded me of गिद्ध भोजन (Vulture’s dining 😛 ) It was around 6.30 and getting dark when we left. We stopped before the Majivda flyover where Danny, Rajesh and Rajo left via Godbandar road. While me and Anksuh went further ahead where Ankush forked under the Cadbury junction and I raced on the highway towards Mumbai.

As I rolled my bike into the building compound I saw the odometer, the last 3 digits were reading 558. I remembered when I left the earlier morning it showed around 143 or so. It had been a long but an exceptionally beautiful bike ride of about 400km in 2 days. It was much more adventurous than the previous bike ride of Lonavala

Route

Mumbai to Bhandardara

View Larger Map

Bhandardara to Mumbai via Malshej ghat

View Larger Map

Complete Album

MySQL

MySQL makes community server edition difficult to find and download!

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Read this post today, http://mysqlha.blogspot.com/2010/02/dude-where-is-my-link.html. And I was amazed to find that on mysql.com it was so hard to download the community version of MySQL Server.

On the home page, could see links for

  • Enterprise Products
  • Resources
  • Consulting
  • Training
  • News and Events

Couldn’t find a link for Community Server Download or something similar, I’ve been working with MySQL for over 5 yrs, I know that the downloads and most of the useful stuff for open source devs like me is on http://dev.mysql.com. The Developer Zone hosts the following for us

  • Community Server Downloads
  • Documentation (which keeps changing its links)
  • Articles
  • Forums
  • Beginner articles
  • MySQL forge
  • … and much more

I’m really surprised and ashamed of this MySQL’s or Ora@#$’s move to hide such a widely used link.

I’ve done my part in adding rel='nofollow' attribute to http://mysql.com

Web

Hiphop PHP

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Facebook has been working a lot, Cassandra, Scribe, u name it. The new kid from Facebook is Hiphop PHP which is an automated system that converts PHP to C++

HipHop programmatically transforms your PHP source code into highly optimized C++ and then uses g++ to compile it.

Read More here: HipHop

Trek, Biking

Harishchandragad via Nalichi Vat

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Here is another blogpost about my Harishchandragad trek via nali chi vaat. I’ve kept a different idea of writing this blog post, its more of the thoughts zooming out as I jot down the trek. This writeup moves in and out of present and past tense.

This post is somewhere between the normal blog and far away 140 chars tweet.

Fri, January 8, 2010

* Karjat train for kalyan, sandwiches Mallik brought
* reached Kalyan about 9.00pm
* bus for Nagar , dropped us at Khubi phata instead of Savarne as both the conductor and the aspirants dozed off!
* took 2 trucks back to savarne, my truck driver advised to stay near the police chowki and be aware of the villagers at savarne
* almost 12.30 when we reached @ savarne, Mallik, Rajo and Vj followed after 10 mins
* decide to sleep near the police chowki, in our sleeping bags, till the alarm rang at 4.45

Ruturaj's Album

Sat, January 9, 2010

* got ready, and started to move in the dark to find ‘Walivare’ or Belpada. Asked a old fellow in Savarne, continued towards a plateau like hill, crossed it, and down, to walk further following a white tank.
* at 7.0am Belpada well, also saw the concrete road that came around the plateau (could’ve saved our climbing efforts)
* refilled water bottles and cleared the ‘stomach bottle’, and started for the Nali by 7.45

Nali

* Meet a thane group, enroute to Nali
* our first stop is around 8.48 at the ‘Big step’, have boiled eggs, watermelon, yes Mallik managed that in his ‘super’ heavy bag
* the first group cross us till we have our food, Mallik is panicked! need to get ahead of them in the nali, otherwise we’re jacked
* nali.. starts soon

Rock patch #1

* rock patch one, a first group, from trekdi.com is seen ahead pulling bags, etc on a rope-line
* we soon reach there, Mallik climbs ahead, throws a rope, and pull bags
* others too climb ahead, Swati is a confident climber!

* the treacherous terrain starts, with loose crumbling rocks, no good hand holds or even foot holds, the base is full of small pebbles, sliding down

Rock patch #2

*the trekdi group is busy lining up their equipment and anchoring stuff. Mallik is quick to climb and go ahead, Rajo follows without a bag, the bags up are called up..
* I tie Swati a bowline, and she starts ahead confidently and moves up, next is me, I too tie a bowline and move ahead.
* Bad scree above, rocks fall one big one falls about 15cm in diameter falls on Rajo’s head, he ducks, but still scratches his spectacles and falls bang! on his right knee, more rocks follow, rajo runs towards me, I somehow manage to keep him anchored !
*Vj comes in at the last. All 5 of us are out while trekdi is just begining to start actual ‘people ferrying’. Advantages of a small group in such terrain.

Rock patch #3

* further moving up, and things get worst, extermely bad scree, loose footing! And we are at the final patch 3, trekdi’s local / village guide throws rope, Mallik climbs ‘commando’ style pulling the rope with the bag, sits, hoists our rope, and asks Swati to be next, Rajo is unable to tie the bowline or even a endman’s knot.. finally ask him to tie a ‘desi’ knot and Swati moves up! very confident. मल्लिक कि बहन जचती है!, Bags are ferried up. Rajo is next, then its me. Vj tries to come with the bag, but is difficult, so sans bag!

Rock patch #4

* then cross a kind of ‘dangerous’ traverse to the right, and back to left towards another side, move ahead and see which seems like another patch where ropes could be necessary.
* Mallik says, this is definitely land-slide, cause last time when he was with Mei and Sanjay, this wasn’nt a problem, either ways we move up again with the same pattern of ferrying bags and the people, that was patch 4, Mallik says that this is officially the end of Nali

Konakan Kada

* little ahead, there is another a little dicey maneuver, we adopt a similar pattern for Swati, while rest of us make with our bags.
* with that we are almost just below the final konkan-kada’s reach, but for that we have to climb a litle of 10 mins and we’re at the exhaustive expanse of the kada, we wait there rest for a while and move out to explore the kada, Vj and Swati the first timers for the Konkan kada and they need to see more of that than rest.
* Move up to the hole near the edge and enjoy some time over there.

Harishchandragad Temple and bath

* Finally leave for Harishchandragad, its another 20+ minutes in the hot sun, feels like we’re not really walking but as Mallik states ‘zombies moving’. Another small hill to climb, which is a big big pain!
* The pain pays off, when we finally reach the temple, its just 3.00pm, we’d started our journey around 8.00am, its been 7 hours since Belpada and around 8.5 hours from Savarne. The sole of my legs are really hurting, Mallik is tired to death, and nothing different for others.
* We keep our bags near the cave in the temple, and finalize that as our night-halt point. Then we leave for a dip in the cistern
* its extremely cold as we expected and I barely manage to be there for a minute inside, Mallik and Rajo do 3/4th round around the shiv-ling and come back, Vj is last for everything, after all of us are out, he finally goes in and stays there for about 5 mins
* All are extremley hungry, we decide for some tea first. Mallik cant have enough patience to wait for the tea and then have hot Maggi soup.

Food

* At the cave, Mallik prepares for the soup in the kadhai that Rajo got with Vj’s wax-stove. But we wonder how we’d have it,
* I decide to check if I can borrow some glasses from the tea fellow, and end up purchasign 5 plastic glasses from him.
* We start with bread, mayonnaise and cheese slices as we wait for the soup, after teh dip in the cold cistern, our bodies have cooled down, and the early Jan air is cold around 4.30pm. * The soup is read, me and Mallik gulp down it hot! aah ‘Bliss’ as we both agreed, Swati is wasteful in losing the ‘heat energy’ of the soup, while me and Mallik are gulping the hot liquid as it goes down heating our throats, inner linings of the gullet which we can feel and rather enjoy that feeling.
* also eat chocolate cake and chocolate cake roll, Most of us are kinda full, but me Mallik and Rajo are eager for some more heat down the gullet, and I make sure atleast 2 maggies or Top Ramen noodles are prepared to satisfy our lust for piping hot gulps. Vj is full, but manages to have some maggi, and soon all the maggi has met its destination, the stomachs.
* we move out again to wash hands, fill water bottles, when we see the trekdi public standing outside

* as opposed to inital plan, there wont’ be any dinner, this was all, All that we now needed was rest. Rajo had asked a local to arrange for some firewood, and he starts teh fire with Swati right in the cave ! A decision that all repented later as the cave is full of smoke, and everybody is tearful, we wait for about 0.5 hrs till the cave is warm, we wait around edge of the cave listning songs on the mp3 player, where its not that ‘tearful’ atmosphere.

* Finally around 8.00 we start preparing for sleep, while Swati curses us to be boring to sleep so early
* Rajo asks me if I’m interested in ‘paani maarke aanaa’, I agree and we move out to see a very beautifully lit starry night outside
* We call Vj outside and we try some snaps, before we finally go to sleep.
* 5.00am is the alarm time set

Sun, January 10, 2010

* Rajo’s alarm rings, he wakes up Mallik, Mallik is just ‘hmm.. uthgayaa main, still lying’ Rajo sleeps back
* 5.30 am Mallik’s alarm rings, and we finally wake up
* 6.45 we move off for Khireshwar via tolar khind, Rajo Mallik is just surging ahead, while rest of us are just following, Vj and Swati lagging behind.
* At the tolar khind rock face, Vj is angry that he still has to carry his load of ‘Maaza’. So finally Mallik has a sip or two and then he leaves us behind while he races ahead alone, he’d go to Hotel aishwarya and get ‘pohe’ prepared.

* we continue easy, a big DRDO group is coming up, Hi, Hellos, greetings fly by!
* around 9.00am we are @ the hotel, enjoying Pohe, Now I need to download
* after the ‘weight-lessner’ we take a very bumpy jeep ride to Madh, and then walk to Khubi phata where we spot a bus

* home is still not close by, as the ST stops @ Murbad probably for lunch break, my lunch was @ home when I reached at 2.45pm

Travelling Directions

  1. Get a train for Kalyan (Central Line) from Dadar (or where ever you are)
  2. Get a S.T.(State Transport) bus for Nagar, make sure its going from the Malsej Ghat (I don’t think there is another route though, just to be on safe side)
  3. Alight at Savarne, make sure you let few commuters know where you are going. Make sure u tell the conductor its NOT KHUBI PHATA
  4. Walk from Savarne towards Belpada, the base village
guitar

Iktara – Wake Up Sid | Guitar chords

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This entry is part 15 of 41 in the series Guitar

I came across the title of this song in one of my email conversations, I sincerely thank the person for this, since then I couldn’t wait to chord-ify the song.

The soulful ballad is in the scale of G, If you find that any chord is missing or slightly incorrect just simply strum the G chord.

Strumming Pattern:D D U U D U

It changes slightly during the chorus. I shall try to tab the intro and if possible within my limits, the interlude 😛

Orey manva tu to bavra hai
G                      C
Tu hi jaane tu kya sochta hai
G                         C
Tu hi jaane tu kya sochta hai bavre
G                         C
Kyun dikhaye sapne tu sote jaagte
G                     C    G

Jo barse sapne boond boond
G              C	G
Nainon ko moond moond
          G
(Nainon ko moond moond)
C          G
Jo barse sapne boond boond
G              C
Nainon ko moond moond
          G
Kaise main chaloon, dekh na sakoon
G                   D
Anjaane raastein
C              G

(chorus)
Gunjasa hai koi iktara iktara, gunjasa hai koi iktara
G               C              G               C
Gunjasa hai koi iktara iktara, gunjasa hai koi iktara
G               D              C               G
Dheeme bole koi iktara iktara, dheeme bole koi iktara
G               C              D               C
Gunjasa hai koi iktara iktara, gunjasa hai koi iktara
G               D              C               G

Sun rahi hoon sudh budh khoke koi main kahani
G                             C
Poori kahani hai kya kise hai pata
      Am             C          G
Main to kisiki hoke yeh bhi na jaani
G                   C
Ruth hai ye do pal ki ya rehgi sada
Am                 C             G
(kise hai pata… kise hai pata)

Jo barse sapne boond boond
G              C
Nainon ko moond moond
          G
(Nainon ko moond moond)
C          G
Jo barse sapne boond boond
G              C
Nainon ko moond moond
          G
Kaise main chaloon, dekh na sakoon
G                   D
Anjaane raastein
C              G

(chorus)
Gunjasa hai koi iktara iktara, gunjasa hai koi iktara
G               C              G               C
Gunjasa hai koi iktara iktara, gunjasa hai koi iktara
G               D              C               G
Dheeme bole koi iktara iktara, dheeme bole koi iktara
G               C              D               C
Gunjasa hai koi iktara iktara, gunjasa hai koi iktara
G               D              C               G

A lovely violin then follows...

 

MySQL

Redis, Memcached, Tokyo Tyrant and MySQL comparision (rectification skip-name-resolve)

9 Comments

My previous post Redis, Memcache, Tokyp Tyrant, MySQL comparison had a flaw as pointed out by this comment. The MySQL was taking a huge time for doing a reverse DNS lookup.

I turned on the skip-name-resolve parameter in the my.cnf and the Throughput of MySQL grew considerably, almost more than double.

Here are the new results.

GET

SET

worksheet

MyISAM vs InnoDB

Nothing much has changed in the above test. Except for the fact InnoDB starts leading the way when there are high number of concurrent Inserts/Updates or Writes on the table. As seen from the “Set” graph InnoDB starts closing for MyISAM’s write efficiency around 30 concurrent requests and then by 60 concurrent requests its already ahead in throughput of writes – 1284/s against 825/s. Further I had put a watch on processlist and was watching the processess, there were times during MyISAM when the inserts took over 6seconds to finish, which also means that if you are in a need of an application which requires quicker response during heavy loads / heavy concurrency… You need to check the MyISAM vs. InnoDB scenario really closely. At low concurrency MyISAM is well ahead in writes, and in Reads, both MyISAM and InnoDB perform equally well.

Again you need to make sure that you check ur test conditions really well before just taking InnoDB for granted.

MySQL, Linux, Web

Redis, Memcached, Tokyo Tyrant and MySQL comparision

21 Comments

I wanted to compare the following DBs, NoSQLs and caching solutions for speed and connections. Tested the following

My test had the following criteria

  • 2 client boxes
  • All clients connecting to the server using Python
  • Used Python’s threads to create concurrency
  • Each thread made 10,000 open-close connections to the server
  • The server was
    • Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 3.00GHz
    • Fedora 10 32bit
    • Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 3.00GHz
    • 2.6.27.38-170.2.113.fc10.i686 #1 SMP
    • 1GB RAM
  • Used a md5 as key and a value that was saved
  • Created an index on the key column of the table
  • Each server had SET and GET requests as a different test at same concurrency

Results please !

Work sheet

throughput set

throughput get

I wanted to simulate a situation where I had 2 servers (clients) serving my code, which connected to the 1 server (memcached, redis, or whatever). Another thing to note was that I used Python as the client in all the tests, definately the tests would give a different output had I used PHP. Again the test was done to check how well the clients could make and break the connections to the server, and I wanted the overall throughput after making and breaking the connections. I did not monitor the response times. I didnt change absolutely any parameters for the servers, eg didn’t change the innodb_buffer_pool_size or key_buffer_size.

MySQL

MySQL lacked the whole scene terribly, I monitored the MySQL server via the MySQL Administrator and found that hardly there were any conncurrent inserts or selects, I could see the unauthenticated users, which meant that the client had connected to MySQL and was doing a handshake using MySQL authentication (using username and password). As you could see I didn’t even perform the 40 and 60 thread tests.

I truncated the table before I swtiched my tests from MyISAM to InnoDB. And always started the tests from lesser threads. My table was as follows

CREATE TABLE `comp_dump` (
  `k` char(32) DEFAULT NULL,
  `v` char(32) DEFAULT NULL,
  KEY `ix_k` (`k`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1

NoSQL

For Tokyo Tyrant I used a file.tch as the DB, which is a hash database. I also tried MongoDB as u may find if u have opened the worksheet, But the server kept failing or actually the mongod failed after coming at an unhandled Exception. I found something similar over here. I tried 1.0.1, 1.1.3 and the available Nightly build, but all failed and I lost my patience.

Now what

If you need speed just to fetch a data for a given combination or key, Redis is a solution that you need to look at. MySQL can no way compare to Redis and Memcache. If you find Memcache good enough, you may want to look at Tokyo Tyrant as it does a synchronous writes. But you need to check for your application which server/combination suits you the best. In Marathi there is a saying “मेल्या शिवाय स्वर्ग दिसत नाही”, which means “You can’t see heaven without dieing” or need to do your hard work, can’t escape that 😉

I’ve attached the source code used to test, if anybody has any doubts, questions feel free to ask