Smooth Scaling: Why ScyllaDB Moved to “Tablets” Data Distribution

ScyllaDB has introduced a new "tablets" replication architecture with its 6.0 release, aiming to enhance data distribution flexibility and scalability within clusters. Building on Raft and inspired by implementations in systems like Google Bigtable and YugabyteDB, the tablets approach enables near-instant node addition and allows for rapid scaling to meet traffic demands without overprovisioning. This shift addresses limitations in ScyllaDB's previous design, such as static token-based distribution and the challenges of an eventually consistent leaderless architecture. The new architecture facilitates faster bootstrapping and decommissioning processes, supports incremental and parallel node additions, and improves performance for workloads with numerous small tables. By decoupling cluster topology operations, ScyllaDB aims to provide a more efficient and dynamic data management solution, with the implementation details to be explored in a subsequent blog post.