September 2021 Summaries

Liquibase is an open source change management project that supports various databases, including Snowflake, MySQL, and PostgreSQL via JDBC. It allows users to define changes in SQL, XML, JSON, or YAML, which are then managed in a version control system for documentation, ordering, and standardization. Liquibase can be used with YugabyteDB, a distributed SQL database. To start using Liquibase with YugabyteDB, one needs to install it on their local workstation, create a cluster, and add the necessary dependencies, including the Liquibase YugabyteDB extension. The extension overrides methods from PostgreSQL database implementation for changes where PostgreSQL and YugabyteDB differ. A changelog file is created to manage sequence of changesets, each making small changes to the structure of the database. The changelog file contains XML code that defines the changeset, which can be executed using the `liquibase update` command. After executing the first change, a second change can be issued using SQL in a separate file, and it will be executed similarly. However, certain changesets are not supported by YugabyteDB yet, such as dropPrimaryKey or addUniqueConstraint.

This walkthrough guides developers on connecting a Spring Boot application to YugabyteDB Managed, a cloud-native SQL database service. The process involves creating a free account and cluster, cloning the Spring Boot PetClinic sample application, containerizing it, starting minikube, and deploying the image to create a Kubernetes cluster with a load balancer. The application is then made available at a specified URL, allowing developers to test its functionality on the YugabyteDB database cluster.

This blog post discusses implementing a timer for multi-statement operations in YugabyteDB or PostgreSQL, providing an alternative to the native "\timing on" feature. The author highlights the limitations of "\timing on", such as not supporting end-to-end timing and not storing results in a spool file. To address this, they propose using SQL to implement a stopwatch that reads the wall clock at the start and finish of operations, allowing for end-to-end timing and recording the measured time in a spool file. The author provides several schemes for implementing the memo, including using an ordinary table, a user-defined run-time parameter, a ysqlsh variable, or an ordinary PL/pgSQL variable within a procedure. They compare the noise levels of these approaches and recommend choosing the best method based on the specific use case. Ultimately, they suggest installing the procedure start_stopwatch() and function stopwatch_reading() centrally in any database to make ad hoc end-to-end timing easy for users.

The YugabyteDB Open Source Community Spotlight highlights Martin Roos, the Head of Technology at Fortumo, who is actively engaged with the Yugabyte community and has valuable insights to share about his experience with the database. With over 20 years of database experience, Martin has worked with various databases including Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and now YugabyteDB. He was initially drawn to YugabyteDB due to its scalable, clustered design and high PostgreSQL compatibility, which makes it an attractive option for businesses looking to migrate from existing monolithic SQL databases. Martin has been stress testing YugabyteDB and has found it to be reliable and easy to use, with features such as automatic data sharding and seamless upgrades making it a compelling choice. He is currently evaluating its cloud deployment capabilities and plans to build more applications on top of it in the future.

YugabyteDB is now available on the Oracle Cloud, with support for Kubernetes (OKE) deployment. This allows users to create a highly scalable and fault-tolerant database cluster using YugabyteDB's distributed architecture. The Oracle Cloud Kubernetes Service provides a managed environment for deploying and managing Kubernetes clusters, making it easier to deploy and manage YugabyteDB. With OKE, developers can quickly deploy and scale their YugabyteDB clusters, reducing the administrative overhead associated with traditional deployment methods. The use of OKE also enables rolling upgrades, allowing developers to upgrade individual nodes one at a time, without disrupting the entire cluster. Additionally, the Oracle Cloud provides free network traffic between Availability Domains, making it an ideal choice for high availability and disaster recovery scenarios. Overall, the integration of YugabyteDB with OKE on the Oracle Cloud provides a powerful tool for building scalable, reliable, and highly available database solutions.

The Spring Data YugabyteDB project provides a native support for YugabyteDB, a distributed SQL database, to build modern cloud-native applications. It abstracts away the need to learn the database-specific query language, reducing ramp-up time and increasing developer velocity. The project supports first-class support for YugabyteDB Distributed SQL (YSQL) API, Consistent and familiar CRUD operations with reduced boilerplate code using YugabyteDB templates and repositories, ACID transactions, cluster-awareness, topology-awareness, and lightweight ORM support based on Spring Data Relational ORM. Developers can easily get started by adding the required Maven dependencies to their Spring Boot applications and configuring the YsqlTemplate and YugabyteTransactionManager. The project also provides a sample application, Spring Petclinic with Spring Data YugabyteDB, which demonstrates its use in a real-world scenario.

Spring Boot is a popular framework for building cloud-native applications that can be easily deployed in a distributed fashion to containers or Kubernetes. YugabyteDB Managed is a PostgreSQL-compatible database-as-service offering that provides resilience and scalability, making it an ideal match for Spring Boot applications deployed on Kubernetes. This walkthrough guides users through connecting a Spring Boot application to YugabyteDB Managed and deploying it on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). The process involves creating a free YugabyteDB Managed account and database cluster, downloading the Spring Boot PetClinic sample application, containerizing it, and deploying it to GKE. Users can then access the application by visiting a specified URL, and the application will be available once the deployment is complete.

Spring Data YugabyteDB is an open-source project that enables developers to easily use YugabyteDB distributed SQL databases for Spring-based microservice applications, combining the familiar Spring Repository interface with the resilience, scalability, and geo-distribution offered by YugabyteDB. The project provides a standard set of APIs provided by Spring Data, eliminating the need to learn a database-specific query language, reducing ramp-up time and increasing developer velocity. It builds upon the existing partnership between Yugabyte and the Spring community, leveraging the dominance of Spring Boot as the primary Java framework for building microservices. With its focus on simplicity and sophistication, Spring Data YugabyteDB offers several advantages over other alternatives, including improved performance, availability, and failure handling, while providing a strong track record of partnership with VMware and Pivotal Software. Developers can start exploring how to use YugabyteDB for their Spring applications using various resources, including the official website, instructor-led workshops, and sample apps like PetClinic.