January 2019 Summaries

FoundationDB is a key-value database that can be used to build new application-friendly databases, but it has several limitations and weaknesses when compared to other databases such as YugabyteDB. FoundationDB's architecture is complex, making it difficult for developers to understand and use, while its core engine seems to favor approaches that are architecturally limiting and reinvent the wheel in terms of high-performance storage engines. The database also lacks a SQL-compatible relational layer, has limitations in fault tolerance, and does not support multi-region active/active clusters. Additionally, FoundationDB's ease of use is hampered by the inability to easily introspect browse the current data managed by the cluster, and its command line shell is weak compared to other databases like YugabyteDB. Overall, while FoundationDB has some strengths, it misses the mark on making application development and deployment easier, particularly in comparison to databases like YugabyteDB that offer more flexibility, scalability, and ease of use for internet-scale transactional workloads.

YugabyteDB is composed of nodes that form a universe, which can be physical machines, virtual machines, or containers. A universe is made up of one or more clusters, with each cluster containing a primary cluster and optional read replica clusters. Clusters can be deployed in various configurations, including single availability zones, multiple AZs within a region, or across multiple regions and cloud providers. YugabyteDB uses two servers: YB-TServer, which handles I/O operations and replicates data, and YB-Master, which maintains system metadata and performs administrative tasks using Raft. Data is stored as tables in logical keyspaces, which are grouped into universes and can span clusters. The universe automatically shards, replicates, and rebalances table data across the cluster.

YugabyteDB outperforms CockroachDB in internet-scale transactional workloads by delivering 3.5x higher throughput and 3x lower latency compared to CockroachDB, with notable advantages in high write operations per second, low latency reads, and geographically distributed deployments. YugabyteDB excels in inserting large amounts of data concurrently, querying large datasets quickly, and handling distributed transactions efficiently, making it a suitable choice for cloud-native services building internet-scale transactional workloads.

To migrate data from Cassandra or MySQL to YugabyteDB, users can utilize the CSV format as the most universally portable way to accomplish data migrations. YugabyteDB uses Cassandra's COPY FROM command and a forked version of Cassandra's Bulk Loader for importing data and Cassandra Unloader for exporting data into a CSV format. The process involves creating a destination table in YugabyteDB, exporting data from Cassandra or MySQL, and then importing the data into YugabyteDB using the recommended tools and methods based on the size of the dataset. Additionally, users can export data from YugabyteDB into CSV files using the cassandra-unloader tool.

The distributed SQL market has evolved from the monolithic SQL era to globally distributed SQL databases that offer cost-effective horizontal write scaling, self-healing fault tolerance, and full spectrum of ACID compliance. Google Spanner-inspired databases such as Yugabyte DB, CockroachDB, and TiDB are solving every core issue of the past and laying the foundation for highly reliable and resilient data infrastructure in the cloud native era. These databases offer transparent sharding, replication, and multi-shard transactions, eliminating data loss and latency issues observed in traditional monolithic SQL and NewSQL databases. They also provide a fully open-source, cloud-native, distributed SQL database built on top of common distributed document store architectures. With Yugabyte DB, application architects can build apps fast with the data model of choice, reducing developer agility and operational simplicity challenges associated with legacy databases.

### Getting Started with YugabyteDB’s Security Features YugabyteDB's security features are designed to protect the database from unauthorized access and ensure data integrity. Authentication is enabled by default, but it must be explicitly enabled before use. The authentication process involves creating roles, assigning users to these roles, and configuring permissions. Roles determine what a user can do in the database, with permissions controlling specific operations on database objects. Authorization with role-based access control (RBAC) ensures that only authorized users can perform actions. Encryption is also available using OpenSSL's TLS encryption, which secures internal communication between nodes, application connectivity, and command line shell interactions. A security checklist provides a basic framework for securing the system before deployment.

Here is a summary of the provided text in one paragraph: YugabyteDB, a cloud-native transactional database company, celebrated its first full year in the market in 2018 with significant milestones, including two major releases (1.0 and 1.1) that showcased the product's performance and correctness characteristics through benchmarking tests such as YCSB and Jepsen. The company received $16M in funding, expanded its ecosystem integrations with popular solutions like Apache Kafka, Apache Spark, and Presto, and published 53 blog posts covering various topics related to cloud-native database architectures. In 2019, YugabyteDB aims to accelerate the adoption of cloud native app and data architectures by releasing YSQL, a high-performance distributed SQL offering, and improving its transactional NoSQL offerings, YCQL and YEDIS, with additional feature depth. The company also plans to launch a fully managed YugabyteDB service on major public cloud platforms and engage in formal Jepsen certification.