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Open Source SQL Database CockroachDB Hits 1.0 (infoworld.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the New-SQL dept.

An anonymous reader quotes InfoWorld: CockroachDB, an open source, fault-tolerant SQL database with horizontal scaling and strong consistency across nodes -- and a name few people will likely forget -- is now officially available. Cockroach Labs, the company behind its development, touts CockroachDB as a "cloud native" database solution -- a system engineered to run as a distributed resource. Version 1.0 is available in both basic and for-pay editions, and both boast features that will appeal to enterprises.

The company is rolling the dice with its handling of the enterprise edition by also making those components open source and trusting that enterprises will pay for what they use in production.

13 of 80 comments (clear)

  1. And remember by nospam007 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Especially in these times.
    This one will still work when all the other SQL-Databases have died a nuclear death.

  2. Small subset of SQL by mi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    From their FAQ (emphasis mine):

    Can a MySQL or PostgreSQL application be migrated to CockroachDB?

    The current version of CockroachDB is intended for use with new applications. The initial subset of SQL we support is small relative to the extensive standard, and every popular database implements its own set of extensions and exhibits a unique set of idiosyncrasies. This makes porting an existing application non-trivial unless it is only a very lightweight consumer of SQL functionality.

    It may be a really cool software package, but, I gather, if you allowed for only a "small subset" of SQL to be supported, you could have MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, and Sybase as "fault tolerant" and with "strong consistency".

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    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    1. Re:Small subset of SQL by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      The biggest innovation I see is that it does some kind of automatic sharding. Good comparison here.

      A lot of the source code is written in Go, which is interesting and probably not a bad choice. The code is clean and easy enough to understand. Its primary weakness is poor organization, which is also the primary weakness of their documentation. Both would benefit from the concept of "topic sentence, supporting sentences," so when I approach and ask, "what are the most important points here?" the answer is immediately obvious.

      Looking at alternative databases these days, you always need to evaluate them in terms of the CAP theorem. What do they give up? The website mentions several times that they are consistent. They are big on partitioning, so that isn't what they've given up, so they must have given up availability. They claim to have good survivability. It seems they can keep running even if one of the servers running a shard dies (they expect sharding based on geography), and they don't offer consistency for queries across shards.

      It's an interesting approach, but given the name, if the idea's any good someone else will take the idea and win with a better name. Ebola is an easier sell.

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      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  3. No, not shards by mi · · Score: 3, Informative

    Horizontal scaling - does that mean it uses shards?

    No, not according to the the FAQ, which says (emphasis mine):

    Does CockroachDB support distributed transactions?

    Yes. CockroachDB distributes transactions across your cluster, whether it’s a few servers in a single location or many servers across multiple datacenters. Unlike with sharded setups, you don’t need to know the precise location of data; you just talk to any node in your cluster and CockroachDB gets your transaction to the right place seamlessly. Distributed transactions proceed without downtime or additional latency while rebalancing is underway. You can even move tables – or entire databases – between data centers or cloud infrastructure providers while the cluster is under load.

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    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    1. Re:No, not shards by sodul · · Score: 2

      How well does it work in practice and at scale? The marketing claims are 'cute' but they stay marketing claims until independently verified. I have tried other 'distributed' SQL' DBs such as crate and you can paint me unimpressed with the performance and, pun intended, bugs.

  4. Can't get past the name... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Does CockroachDB work with RAID?

  5. They need a decent marketing dept... by Viol8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... because the men in suits who sign the cheques are really not going to go a bundle over something called Cockroach. No doubt it sounded amusing after a few beers on a friday night, but I'm struggling to think of any current IT products with a worse name.

    1. Re:They need a decent marketing dept... by Gavagai80 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If your marketing pitch is fault-tolerance, cockroach is a good way to convey that it's hard to kill.

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    2. Re:They need a decent marketing dept... by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      Yorkshireman here, fuck off and stop talking shite.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    3. Re:They need a decent marketing dept... by tigersha · · Score: 2

      Bill Gates did the same when he named MicroSoft

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      The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
  6. Re:I would've guessed it's a pest control product by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Informative

    You mean ANTSY SQL

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    Table-ized A.I.
  7. Cockroach Labs makes CockroachDB. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 2

    Couldn't they have found a better name? Maybe PukeDB? FatalCancerDB? FootSmellDB? PottyTrainingDB?

    From the article: "CockroachDB may sound like a joke project..."

  8. moderately difficult to setup timings by planckscale · · Score: 2

    I spun up 4 vm's on my LAN and tried to get it to work reliably but it seems a lot of how this database maintains cohesion and consistency depends on ensuring your servers have highly accurate times. It works and it's a great database for 'free' but it's not a non-trivial setup either. Anyone else have setup problems and maintaining the cluster due to time issues? https://jasoncoltrin.com/2017/...

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    Namaste