Database Hosting

Service Name

Database hosting

Service Description

The service provides managed Maria 10.2 servers for hosting databases, allowing University staff to manage their own databases hosted on the platform

Maria 10.2 servers run within the Galera 25.3.26 cluster. The Maria 10.2 server’s host databases with predictable data growth and processing that are crucial to university business operations.

Features

  • Highly Available database hosting
  • Load balanced
  • Secure
    • Internal access only
    • Protected by enterprise edge firewall
    • Access restricted to MySQL ports only
    • Data Encryption supported, in transit and at rest
    • PKI supported
  • Maintained and patched by Infrastructure Systems team
  • Automated service health monitoring
  • Regular scheduled backups

Users

Database hosting services are available to all Staff users across the University for Business Process and teaching purposes.

Any staff in faculties should contact their faculty computing officers in the first instance for database hosting requests.

Service Hours

Service Availability - 24x7

Support Availability – Mon-Fri 09:00-17:00, excluding bank holidays

Level of Service

NUIT provides a monthly availability target for the service of 99.5% which is measured against the following: 

Service Component 

Measure 

Database access 

Database can be accessed with correct authentication credentials

Database connectivity 

DDL and DML can be ran against the database 

In the event of the service failing to meet these targets on at least 3 out of any 5 consecutive months a Service Improvement Plan will be put into place. 

Availability measurements exclude service interruption resulting from: 

Scheduled maintenance windows. Customer’s failure to make use of the service as specified in the service definition. Customer’s failure to adhere to University IT Policies. Customer’s failure to follow configuration requirements for the Service as documented, or abusive behaviour, or faulty input. Use of the service outside of the scope and limits provided by the Office365 Exchange Online Service Description. 

Database hosting is offered to staff with the following add-ons

Option 1: encrypted connections from clients to cluster.

Option 2: requested PKI configuration between the cluster and the clients.

Support and Documentation

User documentation for MariaDB is available at: https://mariadb.com/kb/en/library/documentation/

Galera cluster documentation can be found at: https://galeracluster.com/library/documentation/

Additional support is available via the IT Service Desk on 0191 208 5999 or https://nuservice.ncl.ac.uk.

All incidents relating to this service will be handled according to the Incident Management and Major Incident Management processes.

Request Process

A new MariaDB server database can be requested by completing the following form: https://forms.ncl.ac.uk/view.php?id=3387545   

Requests for any other aspect of the service should be made via IT Service website at https://nuservice.ncl.ac.uk, or contact the IT Service Desk on extension 5999.

All requests relating to this service will be handled according to the IT Service Request Fulfilment process.

User Responsibility

It is the user’s responsibility to ensure that they follow the IT rules of use: https://services.ncl.ac.uk/itservice/rules/

Costs

N/A