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CockroachDB Skitters into Beta

cockroachlabs.com

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Re: CockroachDB Skitters into Beta

#31

Post by theseoafs »

teraflop wrote: post #28
marknadal wrote: post #17

Full disclosure: I work for a non-competing (EC vs SC) database - which also has an ugly name "gunDB". Super excited to hear about CockroachDB's progress - and their decision to add SQL support I think was smart. However, I can't go without critiquing their marketing of "Scalable" and "Strongly Consistent", especially when they reference horizontal scaling. Strongly Consistent systems bottleneck around a centralized…

CockroachDB's replication protocol is based on Raft, which is not susceptible to split-brain. (Neither is Spanner, but Spanner requires specialized hardware for clock synchronization.) And contrary to your assertion, it allows consistent snapshots and transactions that cross shard boundaries. The rest of your comment ignores a couple decades or so of very extensive research into scalable distributed transactions. Des…

From what I can tell, gunDB completely ignores all distributed systems research up to this point, so that makes sense.

Re: CockroachDB Skitters into Beta

#32

Post by marknadal »

teraflop wrote: post #28
marknadal wrote: post #17

Full disclosure: I work for a non-competing (EC vs SC) database - which also has an ugly name "gunDB". Super excited to hear about CockroachDB's progress - and their decision to add SQL support I think was smart. However, I can't go without critiquing their marketing of "Scalable" and "Strongly Consistent", especially when they reference horizontal scaling. Strongly Consistent systems bottleneck around a centralized…

CockroachDB's replication protocol is based on Raft, which is not susceptible to split-brain. (Neither is Spanner, but Spanner requires specialized hardware for clock synchronization.) And contrary to your assertion, it allows consistent snapshots and transactions that cross shard boundaries. The rest of your comment ignores a couple decades or so of very extensive research into scalable distributed transactions. Des…

Raft isn't, but that is extremely different from whether an implementation of Raft is or isn't. Kyle Kingsbury's work shows this to be the case quite often - see http://jepsen.io/ .

I have read the design document, and know how Spanner works. This isn't the first time I've asked about this, I had the 2nd highest upvoted comment on the initial CockroachDB announcement ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9660339 ) which means it is many many more people than just me that are concerned about these claims.

Unless you can show me exactly what research contradicts my critique, your response has no merit and doesn't address my concerns. You can't handwave magic appeals to authorities without citing them. So my questions still stand.

Re: CockroachDB Skitters into Beta

#33

Post by endymi0n »

Like both idea and traction, but I'm taking bets how long it takes for the investors to "convince" the team of a rebranding. I mean imagine anyone suggesting "CocktoachDB" in an enterprise setting... Guess we'll see the rIse of the all new and shiny HydraDB soon, mythological creatures always go well :)

Re: CockroachDB Skitters into Beta

#34

Post by exclusiv »

thebiglebrewski wrote: post #3

Honestly as a new yorker the name of your company and product and the title of this blog post make me cringe!

Names are generally not a big deal, but when you are selling a tech solution, it does come into play.

I dislike CouchDB too for many of the same reasons, but when selling it to clients, I first point out that I know the db is not winning marketing awards and then go into why it's awesome and the proper solution.

I'll have to do this for CockroachDB too, but it's quite a bit worse than CouchDB IMO.

Re: CockroachDB Skitters into Beta

#37

Post by pbarnes_1 »

ericfrenkiel wrote: post #20
pbarnes_1 wrote: post #12

Any chance we'll see something like functional indices or Pg-like UPSERT?

Check out MemSQL Community Edition which has these features

Thanks Eric, MemSQL is pretty awesome but I can't really begin to consider it when:

1. Backing up your data is somehow an Enterprise feature?

2. No pricing anywhere on the site, which usually means:

2.1. Sales calls. Nothing I hate more in this world than sales calls.

2.2. $$$$$$$ (which is fine, but I like to know roughly how much $$$$$ before 2.1.)

As far as functional indices, I don't see that here:

http://docs.memsql.com/docs/create-index

What I mean is specifying a WHERE clause on the index.

Re: CockroachDB Skitters into Beta

#38

Post by Spiritus »

I don't really get all the whining about the name, I even kind of like it. It fits well with their narrative.

Besides, they could've called it PoopDB and I still would use it if it survived a nuclear blast and had joins. I couldn't care less about the name. But apparently I'm in a minority...?

Re: CockroachDB Skitters into Beta

#39

Post by wingerlang »

troymc wrote: post #35
thebiglebrewski wrote: post #3

Honestly as a new yorker the name of your company and product and the title of this blog post make me cringe!

The "mouse" (computer hardware) has an equally bad name, and yet...

Except mice do not have the same reputation of grossness that cockroaches have. With Disney, mice are even seen as cute (as opposed to rats).

While I don't care about the cockroach name, I think RoachDB would be a suitable "change" if they have to.

Re: CockroachDB Skitters into Beta

#40

Post by [deleted] »

Spiritus wrote: post #38

I don't really get all the whining about the name, I even kind of like it. It fits well with their narrative. Besides, they could've called it PoopDB and I still would use it if it survived a nuclear blast and had joins. I couldn't care less about the name. But apparently I'm in a minority...?

[deleted]
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