Infrastructure should be boring (2022)
dragonflydb.io
Infrastructure should be boring (2022)
1–10 of 11 posts
Re: Infrastructure should be boring (2022)
#2Submarine
Re: Infrastructure should be boring (2022)
#3Submarine
I'm pretty sure to be a submarine, the implication is that someone not related to the project is writing the piece. This is just straight PR fluff on the project's own website.
~~Also, apparently the project is part of Redis.~~
EDIT: My bad, I looked at the bottom of the page and misread the Redis trademark callout as a company copyright. Apologies for any insults!
I didn't even read the full line, because it clearly says not even affiliated. I have no excuse other than posting while distracted.
Re: Infrastructure should be boring (2022)
#4Submarine
I'm pretty sure to be a submarine, the implication is that someone not related to the project is writing the piece. This is just straight PR fluff on the project's own website. ~~Also, apparently the project is part of Redis.~~ EDIT: My bad, I looked at the bottom of the page and misread the Redis trademark callout as a company copyright. Apologies for any insults! I didn't even read the full line, because it clearly…
it's API-compatible with redis, but not part of redis. it's proposition is a faster, more scalable, multithreaded drop in redis replacement.
Re: Infrastructure should be boring (2022)
#5Submarine
I'm pretty sure to be a submarine, the implication is that someone not related to the project is writing the piece. This is just straight PR fluff on the project's own website. ~~Also, apparently the project is part of Redis.~~ EDIT: My bad, I looked at the bottom of the page and misread the Redis trademark callout as a company copyright. Apologies for any insults! I didn't even read the full line, because it clearly…
Oh no you didn't! Dragonfly is a competitor to Redis.
Re: Infrastructure should be boring (2022)
#6I've never heard of Dragonfly before this, and I see it's a Redis competitor, but the examples here really stretch the definition of what it means to be "not boring."
> how your junior team member ran "flushdb" in production and caused your service traffic to stall
FLUSHDB removes all keys from the database which, depending on your application, could indeed cause a lot of problems. But this seems pretty boring to me: the "delete all data" command deletes all data. Yes, the consequences of doing this on a production application are going to make sure someone's writing a COE, but this doesn't strike me as anything unexpected.
edit: This might be more about sync deletes causing outages, but it's really pick your poison here. Which is less boring, "I ran delete and the database locked" or "I ran delete and did a read but the data was still there?" Really up to you.
> how your engineering team spent a month tuning the Redis engine before Christmas
"Boring" doesn't mean "not tunable" or "one-size-fits-all." MySQL and Postgres are two relatively ancient databases that most people would consider to be really boring, yet they have endless options for performance tuning. Even in todays cloud-first devops-first era, people still make a living off being DBAs, where tuning these systems is their primary job.
If anything, I would be much more wary of a system where the configuration isn't exposed to the user, and the engine uses some heuristics to figure operating parameters out without any way to tweak it. To me, that seems a lot less "boring."
Re: Infrastructure should be boring (2022)
#7> Boring means that it just works, and you don’t have to worry about it.
If that is what “Boring” means then I agree.
Re: Infrastructure should be boring (2022)
#8[dead]
Re: Infrastructure should be boring (2022)
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm pretty sure to be a submarine, the implication is that someone not related to the project is writing the piece. This is just straight PR fluff on the project's own website. ~~Also, apparently the project is part of Redis.~~ EDIT: My bad, I looked at the bottom of the page and misread the Redis trademark callout as a company copyright. Apologies for any insults! I didn't even read the full line, because it clearly…
Oh no you didn't! Dragonfly is a competitor to Redis.
My bad, I looked at the bottom of the page and misread the Redis trademark callout as a company copyright. Apologies for any insults!
I didn't even read the full line, because it clearly says not even affiliated. I have no excuse other than posting while distracted.
Re: Infrastructure should be boring (2022)
#10I’ll see your `FLUSHDB` and raise you a `DROP TABLE foo`.
Or one that’s actually more likely: `DELETE FROM foo WHERE `
Every “boring” database I can think of offers many such foot-guns, waiting to be used.
> Engineers should not spend their careers intimately memorizing random quirks of the infrastructure they use. They deserve better. They deserve boring.
In my opinion, this is a little nonsensical and reeks of the no-ops movement. I’m very excited to see what becomes of Dragonfly over the next few years (Redis needs some competition, I feel) but I will be gobsmacked if they produce a product that somehow requires no infrastructure engineer to memorize its quirks.
I mean, for starters, “quirky” is highly subjective. But more to the point, I’ve never met a piece of software that somehow meets everyone’s expectations in all cases. It’s definitionally impossible.
Set your goals high and all, but at least make them achievable!