Connector/J has long provided an effective means to distribute read/write load across multiple MySQL server instances for Cluster or master-master replication deployments. Starting with Connector/J 5.1.3, you can now dynamically configure load-balanced connections, with no service outage. In-process transactions are not lost, and no application exceptions are generated if any application is trying to use that particular server instance.

There are two connection string options associated with this functionality:

Once a connection has been made using the correct connection string options, a number of monitoring properties are available:

The following management operations can also be performed:

The JMX interface, com.mysql.jdbc.jmx.LoadBalanceConnectionGroupManagerMBean, has the following methods:

The getRegisteredConnectionGroups() method returns the names of all connection groups defined in that class loader.

You can test this setup with the following code:

public class Test {

    private static String URL = "jdbc:mysql:loadbalance://" +
        "localhost:3306,localhost:3310/test?" +
        "loadBalanceConnectionGroup=first&loadBalanceEnableJMX=true";

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        new Thread(new Repeater()).start();
        new Thread(new Repeater()).start();
        new Thread(new Repeater()).start();
    }

    static Connection getNewConnection() throws SQLException, ClassNotFoundException {
        Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver");
        return DriverManager.getConnection(URL, "root", "");
    }

    static void executeSimpleTransaction(Connection c, int conn, int trans){
        try {
            c.setAutoCommit(false);
            Statement s = c.createStatement();
            s.executeQuery("SELECT SLEEP(1) /* Connection: " + conn + ", transaction: " + trans + " */");
            c.commit();
        } catch (SQLException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    public static class Repeater implements Runnable {
        public void run() {
            for(int i=0; i < 100; i++){
                try {
                    Connection c = getNewConnection();
                    for(int j=0; j < 10; j++){
                        executeSimpleTransaction(c, i, j);
                        Thread.sleep(Math.round(100 * Math.random()));
                    }
                    c.close();
                    Thread.sleep(100);
                } catch (Exception e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

After compiling, the application can be started with the -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote flag, to enable remote management. jconsole can then be started. The Test main class will be listed by jconsole. Select this and click Connect. You can then navigate to the com.mysql.jdbc.jmx.LoadBalanceConnectionGroupManager bean. At this point, you can click on various operations and examine the returned result.

If you now had an additional instance of MySQL running on port 3309, you could ensure that Connector/J starts using it by using the addHost(), which is exposed in jconsole. Note that these operations can be performed dynamically without having to stop the application running.

For further information on the combination of load balancing and failover, see Section 21.3.9, “Failover with Connector/J”.