November 2020 Summaries

Redis Labs has been positioned furthest to the right on the Completeness of Vision axis in the Challenger quadrant in the November 2020 Magic Quadrant for Cloud Database Management Systems by Gartner. The company's Redis Enterprise Cloud is a fully managed data platform designed for modern applications, providing unified data across any deployment model and around the globe. It enables multi-model operations across and between modules and core Redis data structures, while maintaining instant latency developers expect from Redis. With unprecedented growth and momentum over the past 12 months, Redis Labs has achieved unicorn status with a valuation exceeding $1 billion, driven in part by its growing partnerships with leading cloud providers. According to Gartner, cloud DBMS revenue will account for 50% of the total DBMS market revenue by 2023. The company's users have shown unprecedented appreciation, with high ratings across various categories on Gartner Peer Insights, including "High-speed, high volume processing" and "Ease of deployment".

We built a search experience for the Redis documentation site using RediSearch, which provided robust full-text search features, allowing us to transform a bland form into an awesome search experience. We created a Python application called redis-sitesearch that indexes our documentation site in RediSearch and powers a REST API backend that queries RediSearch. The frontend makes search requests to the backend API while rendering results. We run the pieces of the project inside a container on Google Cloud, distribute instances worldwide using a multi-zone deployment behind a global load balancer, and use a background job to scrape our documentation site and create Hashes for RediSearch to index. We validate documents based on arbitrary logic, score documents with fine-grained control, and use prefix matching for effective search queries. The application is deployed across multiple zones in Google Cloud, reducing latency and providing an excellent search experience.

The text discusses using Redis as a message queue, demonstrating its many use cases beyond caching. It highlights the importance of distributed systems and their implications on consistency, availability, and partition tolerance according to the CAP theorem. Event sourcing is also mentioned as a technique that prioritizes availability over consistency. The "Hello World" example of microservice architecture, OrderShop, is used to illustrate Redis' role in event stores and message queues. It explains how communication in distributed systems can be brokered or brokerless, with examples using Redis Lists and Streams. The text also touches upon the use of gRPC for network communication, CQRS pattern, SAGA pattern, and a simple UI to watch events and browse state. Overall, it emphasizes Redis' versatility and flexibility in domain and infrastructure services beyond caching.

AWS re:Invent 2020 is a virtual event that takes place from November 30 to December 18, and it's completely free for hundreds of thousands of attendees. The event features Redis Enterprise as a Gold Sponsor, which offers global distribution, endless possibilities, and flexibility in working with any real-time data at any scale, anywhere. The company will also showcase Redis Enterprise Cloud, a fully managed version of Redis that allows users to scale their data across hybrid or multi-cloud deployments around the world. During the event, attendees can learn from customer engagement leader Freshworks about scaling its business with Redis Enterprise Cloud on AWS and attend exclusive speaking sessions with Redis core team members. The virtual booth will be available online, offering 1:1 meetings with company representatives, white papers, datasheets, case studies, blogs, and videos. Additionally, the event will feature a giveaway and swag offers, including a Redis swag pack for attendees who book a meeting with sales representatives.

Adi Godkin, Director of Software Engineering at Redis, shares insights on becoming a software engineering manager, including the importance of mentoring others, collaboration, empathy, and high emotional intelligence. She advises young people to never stop learning and improving, and to prioritize work-life balance in a demanding industry that can be both stressful and rewarding. Adi's journey shows how her interests and strengths evolved from teaching to software engineering and eventually to leadership roles, highlighting the value of self-discovery and growth.

This summer, the company redesigned its website and branding, introducing new colors, fonts, and icons. An infographic from Rediscover Magazine showcases some of these icons and offers insight into their design process. The magazine also features stories on data power, real-time financial services, database trends, serving artificial intelligence, and interviews with tech leaders like Salvatore Sanfilippo.

Azure Cache for Redis, a popular service, has expanded its features to include two new tiers: Redis Enterprise, designed specifically for enterprise workloads. The service now supports enhanced features such as Open source Redis 6.0, multi-AZ replication, Redis on Flash (RoF) on Azure NVMe-enabled virtual machines, and Enterprise modules including scaling, datasets up to 15TB, concurrent connections can be scaled up to 500K, security, private Link support for network isolation, TLS connectivity, integrated billing, and Azure-commitment spend. The service is available in public preview with availability of up to 99.99% and is backed by the Microsoft and Redis support teams. Customers should consider the Enterprise tiers if they need to expand their Redis use cases or require high availability.