Engineering

Online Data Definition Language (DDL) is a crucial feature for modern databases. It allows schema changes without significant downtime or locking that could disrupt database operations. This means these operations carry out while the database continues to be available for reads and writes, minimizing downtime and avoiding disruption to ongoing activities. Online DDL is particularly […]

In the era of cloud computing and Software as a Service (SaaS), it’s essential to optimize resource use and scalability in databases. Multi-tenant architecture meets these needs by allowing a single database instance to serve multiple customers, or tenants. This ensures each tenant’s data remains isolated and secure, leading to enhanced cost efficiency, simplified management, […]

HTAP Summit, the only industry-leading conference focused on Hybrid Transactional/Analytical Processing (HTAP), has officially opened its 2024 call for proposals. Now in its third year, HTAP Summit, organized by PingCAP, gathers database experts, innovators, and enthusiasts to share knowledge and experience about distributed database architecture, real-time operational intelligence and ways modern data technologies can drive […]

Database sharding is a data architecture strategy that increases database performance by splitting up data into chunks and then spreading these chunks “intelligently” across multiple database servers (or database instances). These chunks of data are called shards, while each shard contains a subset of our data. All shards represent the entire set of data, and […]

Transactions—especially distributed transactions—are ubiquitous. Protocols around transactions are equally ubiquitous, even if we don’t immediately realize it. Take, for example, a common marriage ceremony. It’s essentially a two-phase commit (2PC) protocol. The officiant is the transaction coordinator (TC), and the couple getting married are the active participants. In the first phase, the TC asks each […]

While TiDB is already the trusted system of record for some of the most data-intensive applications ever, there is still room to improve. Subsequently, TiDB 7.5, our second long-term support (LTS) release of 2023, emphasizes stability at scale. As application data continues to grow, we see more and more scaling challenges. The most common antidote […]

The world of database management systems (DBMS) is constantly evolving, offering a wide range of options to meet the diverse needs of businesses. Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) has become a common choice as more and more companies move to or get started with their technology infrastructure on public cloud platforms. This is not surprising, given the broad […]

The objective of making a database choice that meets the requirements of today’s data-driven environments is to build high-performance data architectures. But what do these architectures look like? Existing databases address the business problems arising from a fast-paced digital economy. However, the traditional approach of throwing databases at individual, siloed problems needs to be rethought. […]

With the explosive growth of data and the need for scalable and efficient systems, traditional relational and NoSQL databases have faced limitations. This has led to the emergence of distributed SQL databases, revolutionizing how organizations handle their data.  Choosing the right database to power modern applications can be challenging. For starters, as data volumes grow […]

Imagine you own data infrastructure at Super Sweet Tech, Inc (SST), a fictional company for the purpose of this story. Two big initiatives for the fiscal year fall to you. The first is to reduce costs. It’s not 2021 anymore, and the tech economy is tightening, along with its purses. The target is 20% reduction. […]

The following post is an excerpt from Technology Magazine’s feature article, How data engineering is powering Pinterest’s global platform. Pinterest had long recognized the need to streamline and optimize its data storage system. Using HBase, the image sharing and social media platform was carrying a large footprint, with more than 50 clusters and a total […]

Eight years ago, we embarked on an ambitious journey to construct an unparalleled distributed relational database. We aimed to redefine how developers and enterprises manage data, addressing the growing needs for scalability, flexibility, and performance. Guided by our company mission to empower developers and enterprises with speed, agility, and scale, our target was clear: to […]