In the previous releases of the Group Replication plugin for MySQL we introduced support for several operating systems like Mac OS X, Solaris, and FreeBSD. But why stop there? So here it is, the 0.7.0 version of Group Replication is now also available on Windows!

With the new group communication platform introduced on 0.6.0 version and some extra work to make it all work in Windows we now support all major Operating Systems.

Installing Group Replication

The Group Replication Plugin is available for download on labs.mysql.com. Navigate to the labs releases page, select Group Replication from the dropdown list then select the package for Windows.

Simply download the binary package for Windows and install it on your server as described in this announcement blog post.

Note: The installation packages available are designed to work with a specific release of the MySQL server. In this case, MySQL server version 5.7.10. Remember also that both MySQL server and plugin are built and released with optimized build flags. If you use a plugin built with different options on a released server package or a released plugin on a custom built server, this can result in load and usage problems. When using custom build options for either server or plugin you need to use the same build options on the other.

Build it yourself.

As in the other operating systems, it is also possible to do a custom build in Windows. The only requirement is to have Microsoft Visual Studio 12 installed in your system.

Begin by downloading the source code from labs.mysql.com. Navigate to the labs releases page, select Group Replication from the dropdown list then select the source code .tar.gz file.

To compile the plugin on your system, you must first obtain the MySQL server source code for version 5.7.10.  This is because the plugin requires the code and libraries within the MySQL server version 5.7.10 in order to compile properly.
You can download MySQL server version 5.7.10 source code from http://www.mysql.com/downloads/.

Note: There are several prerequisites you must fulfill on your system in order to compile the code. See the online MySQL Reference Manual for more details about the prerequisites.

So, having the two archives:

1. Unpack the server code on mysql-5.7.10.zip
2. Unpack the plugin code on mysql-group-replication-0.7.0-labs.tar.gz
3. In the plugin folder and using the console create a folder to build the plugin and move there:
   
   mkdir BIN cd BIN

   1 2	mkdir BIN cd BIN

Now, the following commands are representative of compilation options used for our release packages, but your specific platform may require slightly different commands.

Note: On of thing that varies is BOOST, for MySQL 5.7.10 the required lib version 1.59.0. If you don’t have it installed in your system, you can use the enable download option

and if you have it in a custom folder you can direct the server to it with

Now, in the windows console type:

These are the settings passed to the server compiling the plugin.
Now do:

And finally, adjusting the path to Visual Studio if needed, type

You can then find the plugin under

Where can I learn more about Group Replication?

To find out more about Group Replication, see the blog entitled, Getting started with MySQL Group Replication.

Conclusion

The development team is very pleased that they have been able to make the plugin compatible on platforms. They hope you try it out and help them make the plugin better through your experiences and suggestions.