Skip to main content

MySQL - Free

 So I was looking at trying to get a cloud based database that was always on. I wanted to build some visuals over whatever data I ended up building and have the DB accessible from a cloud server seemed like the easy way. I wanted to keep it free because I hate spending when I don't need to, so that others could use it for free and because I was sure there must be options out there. In the end my life was made much easier by spending £10 but you can go with the same free option on this site.

https://www.freemysqlhosting.net/

Although not super fast or super sized it gives you a free and easily accessible database. So far I have easily connected using phpAdmin, BeeKeeper Studio, Python, Google Data Studio and Keboola. I have had no issues at all unlike several other solutions I have tried including Heroku. 

To setup the DB you just set your location and hit start, you will then be e-mailed the connection details and then use your favourite MySQL IDE and you are in. 


Above is a snapshot of me connected and using the database through Bee Keeper Studio. For me personally it is a great chance to get experience using MySQL, having mostly been limited to the Oracle stack this is great. So far I haven't done much more than create a few tables and views. 

Below is the full code of the view that I cobbled together using Google / Stackoverflow. Given I have 10 years experience in Oracle it is not surprise that currently I feel Oracle is head and shoulders easier to use. 




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Gen AI news 29-04-2024

Here are some recent updates and insights related to Generative AI (gen AI) : Enterprise Hits and Misses - Robotics and Gen AI Converge : This article discusses the convergence of robotics and generative AI. It explores breakthroughs needed in the field, the FTC’s policy change regarding non-competes, and the impact on AI model sizes for enterprises 1 . Read more All You Need To Know About The Upcoming AI-Powered OLED iPad Pro : This piece provides a summary of rumors surrounding the next-gen AI-fused OLED iPad Pro, powered by the new Apple M4 chip 2 . Read more Delivering on the Promise of Gen AI : New Electronics reflects on NVIDIA GTC and key announcements that contribute to delivering on the promises made for generative AI 3 . Read more The Future of Generative AI - An Early View in 15 Charts (McKinsey): Since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, generative AI has been making headlines. McKinsey research estimates that gen AI features could add up to $4.4 trillion to the globa...

Keboola Flows

Really finding Keboola was the thing that kickstarted this project otherwise I would be trying to build custom code on a python cloud server and building everything from scratch.  In Keboola you build you data sources and destinations using connection details which is fairly simple and something I will likely cover in another post, same goes for transformations etc. Here though I am going to discuss Flows, this is where you bring everything together. On my free account there are some limitations.  My easiest flow is very basic:  Pull parkrun results e-mail from Gmail to Google Sheets (actually done by Zap not Keboola).  Keboola will, as often as I like, in this case once a week, pull the data from the sheet into its storage.  It will then transfer this to the target database. Currently I have this setup to be MySQL database but I can and might expand that to the Snowflake instance within Keboola.  I then, outside of Keboola, connect to the MySQL database f...

Snowflake Scripting - SQL Cursors

Snowflake scripting in SQL seems to be in preview and I have decided to have a play with it. Given how new it is there is limited documentation so I am using a combination of what I can find on the Snowflake site and the odd blog that has been written about it. There appear to be a few quirks, at least when compared to Oracle PL/SQL (though that has been round for years). How many of these are intentional and how many are things to be ironed out I don't know. You can see the procedure I have created it:  Accepts an id as a parameter  Creates a result set selecting from a table, using the parameter as a filter Loads the results set into a cursor.  Loops through the cursor loading the id in the cursor into variable Calls procedure passing in the variable as the parameter.  Then as a proof of concept I tried the Snowflake feature of allowing declaration of variables within the main start and end block.