Dan's Take

Containerized DB Claims Huge Performance Gains

ClustrixDB says it's the first to offer a database engine in a container.

• By Dan Kusnetzky
• 09/23/2016

Clustrix just announced ClustrixDB 8.0, the company's in-memory, scale-out replacement for MySQL. The company claims that this is the first in-memory MySQL that meets the "elastic scaling requirements of high-transaction, high-value workloads of today's Web applications." The in-memory MySQL replacement is designed to accelerate applications that rely on the MySQL database without requiring changes to those applications.

Here's how Clustrix describes ClustrixDB 8.0:

In-memory processing gives three-times performance boost ClustrixDB now provides even faster performance, combining the speed of NoSQL with the relational benefits of SQL for: 

• Performance improvements of up to 300 percent for in-memory bulk data ingest, in-memory streaming HTAP, and high-volume aggregate processing
• The ability to store in-memory or on-disk without separate coding requirements
• Automatic linear scalability to match growth by simply adding more servers

Full containerization for easy installation and deployment It's now even easier and faster to get up and running on ClustrixDB 8.0, which is:

• Fully containerized, making it easy to install and orchestrate ongoing deployments, on any cloud or data center
• Virtually plug-and-play, requiring minimal changes, if any, to your MySQL application
• Intuitive, with an easy-to-use GUI for monitoring and managing cluster performance

If my memory serves me correctly, there are several in-memory NoSQL database engines available that can support SQL access mechanisms. While the list isn't large, MongoDB, Cassandra and even PostgreSQL can be made to function in this type of environment.

What appears to be a supportable claim is that Clustrix might be the first to offer a packaged version of their database engine in containerized form. Others have offered their products in the form of virtual machines (VMs).

The answer, of course, is "it depends." Both approaches offer workload isolation. The use of OSVP assumes that everything happily executes under a single copy of the operating system. VMs, of course, don't make that assumption. Each function or application could execute under a different operating system or a different version of the same operating system. Which is the proper choice depends entirely on the enterprise's requirements.

Claiming to be the first offering a specific type of technology can be problematic for a supplier. Since the world of IT is built upon the shoulders of what has come before, there is almost always an example of something similar.