Support for remote database server

You can specify remote database server to use in Octopus via _THIS_DB_HOST variable (but remote database server root password must be the same as the local Barracuda database server, at least currently), but for Barracuda install we still need to install also database and its libraries locally, to be able to build PHP-FPM from sources. This requirement will be removed in the future, when it will be possible to use PHP 5.3 built-in FPM.

Hmm.. I just checked that the _THIS_DB_HOST in Octopus allows you to specify any FQDN hostname or just localhost, but this feature is not yet fully implemented, so it works only when FQDN points to some local IP, and it will still try to use localhost to access the db server to create grants for Aegir "root" and standard db users, so I'm going to mark this as to-do, because it is an incomplete feature.

What's the status of this? If it still needs work does it make sense for the comments before _THIS_DB_HOST to change and not be "You could also use this feature to connect to the remote database server by default..."

The correct status is "postponed", at least for now.
I fixed the how-to: http://drupalcode.org/project/barracuda.git/commit/b4b8c06

Curious re the status of this issue. I'd love to try one of Joyent's Percona "SmartMachines" (http://www.joyentcloud.com/products/appliances/percona-smartmachine/) .

Also, other than specifying a remote server, are there any other tricks to maximise performance when using a remote database server? For example, is it unwise to have a Linode VM in Japan making database calls to to a Joyent VM in the USA?

It is still postponed.

Using such remote DB server is really a bad idea. It will generate giant invoices for traffic on both ends and it will be slooow.

Using "remote" DB server makes sense only when it is located in the same *local* network and doesn't use public IPs.

Okay thanks for the advice. I suspected as much re bandwidth and performance.
A separate DB server would be a great feature though. When I am currently working the sysadmin will not set up a a site without a separate Db server, so can't use BOA. :( <= makes me sad.

Up till now I was assuming that this feature should just work if I provide the right fqdn and root credentials in octopus. I am on rackspace and it provides a service called Cloud Databases which claims to provide highly optimized and tuned MYSQL instances for blazing fast performance. In case of rackspace the database is in the same region/local network it provides few ways of access ( http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/article/public-vs-private-access ) without bandwidth charges. I even started a rackspace cloud DB instance but now it looks I will have to delete it.

The addition of this feature would be great though.

I can't find a definitive answer on this either. Some questions:

1. Are the d.o issue queues the correct place for support requests?
2. What is the current status of remote database servers with BOA 3.x?
3. Should we install it as another aegir server? Should we configure it in the octopus conf?
4. Assuming there is a solution to this, is it possible to migrate an existing sites database from the master server to the remote?

We have moved back to GitHub a long time ago, as visible/linked/explained at https://www.drupal.org/project/barracuda

Please use https://github.com/omega8cc/boa/issues to post questions etc.

Thanks!