May 4, 2010
Clustrix may be doing something interesting
Clustrix launched without briefing me or, at least so far as I can tell, anybody else who knows much about database technology. But Clustrix did post a somewhat crunchy, no-registration-required, white paper. Based on that, I get the impression:
- Clustrix is making OLTP DBMS.
- The core problem Clustrix tries to solve is scale-out, without necessarily giving up SQL. (I couldn’t immediately tell whether Clustrix supports NoSQL-style key-value interfaces enthusiastically, grudgingly, or not at all.)
- Unlike Akiban or VoltDB, Clustrix makes database appliances. The Clustrix software seems to assume a Clustrix appliance.
- A key feature of Clustrix’s database appliances is that they rely on solid-state memory. I’m guessing that Clustrix appliances don’t even have disks, or that if they do the disks store some software or something, not actual data. (As previously noted, I agree with Oracle in thinking that much of the progress in database technology this decade will come from proper design for solid-state memory.)
- Clustrix talks of things that sound like compiled queries and attempts to avoid locks. However, it doesn’t sound as extreme in these regards as VoltDB.
- Clustrix also talks of things that sound like consistent hashing.
- The brand name “Sierra” also shows up along with the brand name “Clustrix.”
Categories: Clustrix, Data warehouse appliances, DBMS product categories, NoSQL, Parallelization, Solid-state memory, Storage, Theory and architecture
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It will be interesting to see when/whether the big cloud computing providers will be able to provide boxes with lots of solid-state memory, so that you could run your scalable database system “in the cloud” while getting the benefits of this kind of hardware.
One clarification worth mentioning here is regarding our use of solid state disks (SSDs). All of our innovation is in the software we have developed and the fully/truly distributed and parallel nature of our database architecture. This is what gives us the orders of magnitude advantage in scalability over any such system available on the market today. Use of SSDs in our system is not considered any sort of strategic advantage, but is just a practical selection for database applications because they provide a compelling I/O per dollar ratio.