In Materialize, a [cluster](/concepts/clusters/) is an isolated
environment, similar to a virtual warehouse in Snowflake. When you create a
cluster, you choose the size of its compute resource allocation based on the
work you need the cluster to do, whether ingesting data from a source,
computing always-up-to-date query results, serving results to clients, or a
combination.

In this case, you'll create a dedicated cluster for ingesting source data from
your MySQL database.

1. In the [SQL Shell](https://console.materialize.com/), or your preferred SQL
   client connected to Materialize, use the [`CREATE CLUSTER`](/sql/create-cluster/)
   command to create the new cluster:

    ```mzsql
    CREATE CLUSTER ingest_mysql (SIZE = '200cc');

    SET CLUSTER = ingest_mysql;
    ```

    A cluster of [size](/sql/create-cluster/#size) `200cc` should be enough to
    process the initial snapshot of the tables in your MySQL database. For very
    large snapshots, consider using a larger size to speed up processing. Once
    the snapshot is finished, you can readjust the size of the cluster to fit
    the volume of changes being replicated from your upstream MySQL database.