Store data in external database

  • Hello, thanks for the great plugin! Simple History does everything I want it to, except for one thing. I want to store activity data indefinitely. I know I can keep the data in the WordPress database forever, but I don’t want to risk it affecting performance. By offloading it to an external database of my choosing, I can have more control over how long to store and how to purge and it wouldn’t affect WordPress at all. I’d love a feature where I could set the database host, like some other activity log plugins do (e.g. WP Activity Log). Thanks again.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Plugin Author P?r Thernstr?m

    (@eskapism)

    Thanks for the feedback! Something similar to this is on my todo list.

    Could you elaborate how you would like this to work, in your case? For example: would the external database be to only database used, or is it more like a forever storage while the built in database still is used for the regular day to day usage?

    Just trying to gather the needs from our users ??

    Thread Starter Growella

    (@growella)

    Well, I am not saying that it has to be this way, but I envisioned the external database to be the only database used. When you pull up the Simple History events page, it will query from the external database.

    If I want to keep events forever, then I can do that with my external database, and not impact the WordPress site. More background: this is for compliance and auditing purposes.

    Plugin Author P?r Thernstr?m

    (@eskapism)

    Thanks for the feedback. In your case, would that external database be a MySQL/MariaDB database that is accessable on the same network or same server as the main wp database? Just trying to understand the details in this case. Some other users have talked about a secondary database where the events are stored forever (or very long). Not saying what you answer will the final way I do it, just trying to get some insights on what would be preferred ??

    Thread Starter Growella

    (@growella)

    In your case, would that external database be a MySQL/MariaDB database that is accessable on the same network or same server as the main wp database?

    Not necessarily. I was thinking you could just save a MySQL connection URI somewhere in the WP Admin.

    Some other users have talked about a secondary database where the events are stored forever (or very long).

    This would work fine for my purposes. It is an important architectural decision for sure. On one hand, keeping one database would be less work and should allow the plugin to remain mostly the same. On the other hand, keeping a secondary database might be less risky to the plugin overall, but would require writing some sort of process to pipe events into the secondary database at certain times. It would really be a database migration, so you would have to determine when it runs, how to know where you left off last time, what to do if a particular run fails, etc.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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