>Dear Al,
>
>Maybe I was not that clear with "coding time", but what I meant was: does it take more time to code than usual because there may be aspects to take into account than when coding an app. that has a MySQL as backend that's not part of a clustering system.
>
>If there are aspects to consider, what would those be?

My understanding is that there should be no difference in coding a client app such as VFP against a clustered MySQL database, vs. one that is not clustered. Clustering is designed to improve backend performance and/or reliability without having to make changes to client apps. If you haven't found these links already there are some that look useful at the bottom of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySQL_Cluster

Having said all that, I understand there are certain types of applications - typically, low-level utilities such as backup applications - that may need to be "cluster-aware". But, typical VFP business applications should not need to be cluster-aware. If you have a fail-over cluster, my understanding is that during failover, there may be a short delay (these days, I believe only a few seconds or maybe even less) in queries or transactions that may have been in progress during the failover but I understand these queries will finish. For exact details of what happens during a failover you'd have to look at the MySQL docs/links.