Multi-user analytics against IndexedDB stores

Question

I am creating a web application, and need to store some user data (like their favorites history in the app). I had considered using IndexedDB for this purpose, as it would be a little easier to implement than on the server side where I am using MySQL. But, I do want to run analytics against this user data, such as to ask what are the most popular pieces of content that users are saving to their favorites list. If I use IndexedDB, I could use some Javascript on the client side to occasionally forward user data from each IndexedDB store so that it could be analyzed. My question is: would this be scalable for > 25,000 users? Or, am I just asking for trouble with this kind of an approach, in which case I should just store all the user data in MySQL on the server side to make analytics easier?

Answer 1

Those are two different concepts as i understand your question.

indexDB is store locally on the user browser and it's subject to local user behaviors - clean cach , cookies refresh and browser options that are enable.

You should use the indexDB if your site/app load some data to the user browser - like a table/graphdata/friendlist etc. and you want to allow quick navigation with no server calls for some queries sending back to the server.

with this in mind you can store different user sessions and build a small key/value data base and send this when you want to you Server MySQL DB and save this on your side and allow you user to navigate this data or to use the JS API in order to load the right content for your user.

MySQL DB on your server side can do the same but you got some more latency parameters in here - user location vs Server Location , DNS ,network latency , server CPU , Disk , Table structure and Table size that can slow you down.

You should decide what you need in order to learn more on your users on the server side and which data your users need for quick and easy use with your APP . Those 2 data flows are not tied up and you can run them with no code blocking using asynchronies JS commands.

Regarding the scale Issue , IndexDB is good for 1-2MB of data and you should think on a cleansing process or counting main features on the App if you will have 1 key of favorite site . then you just need to add +1 for this key value - sitename_favorite - 5 this data is per user only and the load will be on your MySql server that will get updates from time to time for the users. the IndexDB will be managed by the local machines of the users so 25K users is not relevant for the indexDB part, the load will be on the MySQL server once users updates arrive.