March 2018 Summaries

CockroachDB emphasizes correctness, stability, and performance, with the latest version, CockroachDB 2.0, showcasing significant improvements in online transaction processing (OLTP) metrics such as throughput and latency. The database achieves a maximum throughput of 16,150 tpmC on a TPC-C dataset, marking a 62% improvement over its predecessor, CockroachDB 1.1, and demonstrates an 82% reduction in latency for the same workload. Utilizing serializable isolation by default, CockroachDB offers uncompromising safety without sacrificing performance, unlike many other databases that struggle under such conditions. The TPC-C benchmark, an industry standard for OLTP performance, validates these improvements, with CockroachDB 2.0 supporting up to 1,300 warehouses compared to 850 in version 1.1. CockroachDB is designed for survivability and global deployment, maintaining performance through features like "follow-the-workload" to mitigate distribution's impact. As the 2.0 release approaches, the company plans to publish detailed performance reports and encourages users to test the database themselves.

CockroachDB's upcoming 2.0 release introduces support for JSONB, allowing for the integration of structured and semi-structured data within the same database, enhancing flexibility without compromising on ACID guarantees or scalability. Implemented based on the Postgres design, JSONB offers optimized binary storage for quicker operations compared to traditional JSON, making it particularly effective for frequently read but infrequently written data. The new feature includes inverted indices, enabling efficient querying of unpredictable data structures without the need for predefined indexing. This release, developed with community involvement, addresses the challenges of managing heterogeneous data and aims to simplify data modeling by leveraging JSONB's capabilities for rapid prototyping and flexible data management. CockroachDB invites users to explore this feature in the 2.0 Beta and anticipates further exploration of JSONB use cases for enhanced data management.

CockroachDB, a geographically distributed database, offers benefits like reliability, security, and cost-effective deployments without compromising on throughput and latency. It configures nodes with locality information to manage replication zones effectively, ensuring high diversity and low latency, especially in regions like Asia. For example, Roachmart keeps two replicas in Asia to maintain low latency and places a third replica in the US for diversity, only relocating it back to Asia during regional failures. In the event of a data center failure, CockroachDB can replace missing replicas, balancing resource use with operational continuity. It supports multi-cloud deployments, enabling users to distribute nodes across different cloud providers or regions to optimize availability and latency. Developers can leverage CockroachDB's tools to find the best balance between these factors, especially given the typical application trend of more frequent reads than writes.