What’s New with ScyllaDB? Q&A with CEO Dor Laor

ScyllaDB, a NoSQL database startup co-founded by Dor Laor, has been focused on enhancing its database solutions over the past two years, culminating in the anticipated release of ScyllaDB 5.0. Building on its roots of reimplementing Apache Cassandra for improved performance and compatibility, ScyllaDB introduced several technical advancements including an optimized IO scheduler, support for large partitions, and repair-based node operations to streamline data management. The company also shifted from eventual to immediate consistency using the Raft consensus algorithm, enhancing transaction reliability without compromising performance. Additionally, ScyllaDB has strengthened its Change Data Capture (CDC) capabilities to facilitate real-time data streaming, collaborating with partners like Kafka and Redpanda. Benchmarking efforts have demonstrated significant performance gains, particularly with the adoption of AWS's newer i4i instances, which offer more than double the performance of previous generations. These developments were highlighted in discussions at the ScyllaDB Summit, focusing on the evolving landscape of distributed databases and the company's strategic direction.