July 2020 Summaries

This experiment involves building and running ClickHouse, a columnar SQL database management system, on an Android smartphone. The author's goal is to demonstrate that ClickHouse can be used on smaller scales, such as mobile devices, despite its typical use on large clusters of machines. The process involved several challenges, including overcoming compatibility issues with the Linux kernel, Android linker, and third-party libraries. After setting up a cross-compiled build environment using the Android NDK, the author was able to run ClickHouse on their phone, achieving performance comparable to smaller laptops. However, some queries were slowed down by memory constraints, and debugging revealed a segfault in the `unw_backtrace` function, which is used for profiling. Despite these challenges, the experiment demonstrates that ClickHouse can be used on Android smartphones, making it easier for users to benchmark their devices' performance without needing specialized hardware.