April 2022 Summaries

ClickHouse is a fast database management system that has undergone significant improvements in its documentation, with a new collection of content aimed at helping developers, admins, architects, and analysts effectively use the platform. The updated documentation includes a redesigned Quick Start and Tutorial, guides on connecting popular UI/BI tools and external systems, user guides covering fundamental and advanced topics, and a Reference section providing technical details. The project encourages users to contribute new articles and user guides through a public repository under a Creative Commons license. With incomplete or outdated documentation being a common issue in open-source projects, ClickHouse aims to set an example for contributing to documentation.

ClickHouse has released a new version, 22.3, with exciting features such as JSON data type, ARM builds available as Docker images, and S3 disks as storage options. The company is also developing ClickHouse Cloud, a serverless managed cloud offering that eliminates the need to configure instances and choose CPU, memory, and storage configurations. A new video on Getting Started with ClickHouse has been published, and the waitlist for ClickHouse Cloud is now open. The latest release includes features such as query of the month using JSON data type, reading corner articles about various users and projects, and a call to upgrade to the latest version.

The new ClickHouse release 22.3 offers a long-term support release with security updates and important bug fixes through March 2023, featuring 1308 new commits from 86 contributors. The changes are primarily focused on feature maturity, security, and reliability, with several experimental features becoming ready for production usage, including ClickHouse Keeper as a replacement for ZooKeeper. Additionally, ClickHouse now supports the ARM architecture, with continuous integration and testing passing for AArch64 models, enabling faster performance on this architecture. Virtual Filesystem Over S3 is also available in preview, allowing for more efficient data storage and querying. The release includes various security features, such as authentication with X.509 client certificates, improved fuzzing and testing, and semistructured data support. Performance improvements include optimizations for insertion into MergeTree tables and SELECT queries with huge lists in WHERE IN clauses. Local Cache For Remote Filesystem is also available, providing significant performance enhancements when reading from remote filesystems. Overall, ClickHouse 22.3 aims to provide a more secure, reliable, and efficient database solution.

ClickHouse is facing directly to the internet, storing sensitive data in a database that can be accessed remotely without proper security measures. The service uses an experimental Replicated database engine and two nodes in the RAFT ensemble instead of three, which may lead to inconsistencies and data loss. The application relies on JavaScript code for data processing, which can introduce vulnerabilities. Additionally, ClickHouse does not have built-in support for rate limiting or quotas, leaving it vulnerable to abuse. The service also lacks proper security measures such as SSL encryption and secure authentication mechanisms, making it susceptible to attacks. Overall, while the project is interesting to learn from, it's unlikely that others would want to replicate this approach due to its numerous security and scalability issues.