Sqoop is great for sending data between a JDBC compliant database and a Hadoop environment. Sqoop is built for those who need a few simple CLI options to import a selection of database tables into Hadoop, do large dataset analysis that could not commonly be done with that database system due to resource constraints, then export the results back into that database (or another). Sqoop falls short when there needs to be some extra, customized processing between database extract, and Hadoop loading, in which case Apache Spark's JDBC utilities might be preferred
MySQL is best suited for applications on platform like high-traffic content-driven websites, small-scale web apps, data warehouses which regards light analytical workloads. However its less suited for areas like enterprise data warehouse, OLAP cubes, large-scale reporting, applications requiring flexible or semi-structured data like event logging systems, product configurations, dynamic forms.
Sqoop2 development seems to have stalled. I have set it up outside of a Cloudera CDH installation, and I actually prefer it's "Sqoop Server" model better than just the CLI client version that is Sqoop1. This works especially well in a microservices environment, where there would be only one place to maintain the JDBC drivers to use for Sqoop.
Learning curve: is big. Newbies will face problems in understanding the platform initially. However, with plenty of online resources, one can easily find solutions to problems and learn on the go.
Backup and restore: MySQL is not very seamless. Although the data is never ruptured or missed, the process involved is not very much user-friendly. Maybe, a new command-line interface for only the backup-restore functionality shall be set up again to make this very important step much easier to perform and maintain.
For teaching Databases and SQL, I would definitely continue to use MySQL. It provides a good, solid foundation to learn about databases. Also to learn about the SQL language and how it works with the creation, insertion, deletion, updating, and manipulation of data, tables, and databases. This SQL language is a foundation and can be used to learn many other database related concepts.
I give MySQL a 9/10 overall because I really like it but I feel like there are a lot of tech people who would hate it if I gave it a 10/10. I've never had any problems with it or reached any of its limitations but I know a few people who have so I can't give it a 10/10 based on those complaints.
We have never contacted MySQL enterprise support team for any issues related to MySQL. This is because we have been using primarily the MySQL Server community edition and have been using the MySQL support forums for any questions and practical guidance that we needed before and during the technical implementations. Overall, the support community has been very helpful and allowed us to make the most out of the community edition.
Sqoop comes preinstalled on the major Hadoop vendor distributions as the recommended product to import data from relational databases. The ability to extend it with additional JDBC drivers makes it very flexible for the environment it is installed within.
Spark also has a useful JDBC reader, and can manipulate data in more ways than Sqoop, and also upload to many other systems than just Hadoop.
Kafka Connect JDBC is more for streaming database updates using tools such as Oracle GoldenGate or Debezium.
Streamsets and Apache NiFi both provide a more "flow based programming" approach to graphically laying out connectors between various systems, including JDBC and Hadoop.
MongoDB has a dynamic schema for how data is stored in 'documents' whereas MySQL is more structured with tables, columns, and rows. MongoDB was built for high availability whereas MySQL can be a challenge when it comes to replication of the data and making everything redundant in the event of a DR or outage.
When combined with Cloudera's HUE, it can enable non-technical users to easily import relational data into Hadoop.
Being able to manipulate large datasets in Hadoop, and them load them into a type of "materialized view" in an external database system has yielded great insights into the Hadoop datalake without continuously running large batch jobs.
Sqoop isn't very user-friendly for those uncomfortable with a CLI.
