The InnoDB memcached plugin (daemon_memcached) provides an integrated memcached daemon that automatically stores and retrieves data from InnoDB tables, turning the MySQL server into a fast “key-value store”. Instead of formulating queries in SQL, you can use simple get, set, and incr operations that avoid the performance overhead associated with SQL parsing and constructing a query optimization plan. You can also access the same InnoDB tables through SQL for convenience, complex queries, bulk operations, and other strengths of traditional database software.

This “NoSQL-style” interface uses the memcached API to speed up database operations, letting InnoDB handle memory caching using its buffer pool mechanism. Data modified through memcached operations such as add, set, and incr are stored to disk, in InnoDB tables. The combination of memcached simplicity and InnoDB reliability and consistency provides users with the best of both worlds, as explained in Section 15.19.1, “Benefits of the InnoDB memcached Plugin”. For an architectural overview, see Section 15.19.2, “InnoDB memcached Architecture”.