MariaDB plc announced the immediate availability of a new release of MariaDB SkySQL, a second generation cloud database service. SkySQL offers fully managed databases including its flagship distributed SQL product MariaDB Xpand for maximum resilience and scalability.
The release brings new innovation that lets organizations better manage their cloud database costs. SkySQL now enables autoscaling, which scales resources when demand surges and back down when demand normalizes to save costs. SkySQL also introduces serverless analytics to uncover insights on all current data without the need for ETL and all while paying for only what is used.
Cloud database services offered by public cloud vendors were the first to bring open source databases, such as MariaDB, MySQL and PostgreSQL, to the cloud over a decade ago. These first generation cloud databases emphasized convenience and price, however, today’s world requires extraordinary resilience, elasticity and performance. Accelerated by the pandemic, at an unprecedented level, people have come to expect more from the services and applications they rely on every day – whether it’s travel related, buying tickets to a concert, banking and more. Second generation cloud database services combine deep database expertise and cloud-native technology to run across clouds and achieve unstoppable performance.
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“At our heart, we are a database company,” said Jags Ramnarayan, SVP and SkySQL general manager at MariaDB plc. “We take that deep-rooted experience and knowledge to offer a cloud database service that is tuned and optimized for the most rigorous of situations. SkySQL brings hard-hitting capabilities such as distributed SQL with our Xpand database and we make it incredibly easy to operate, monitor, run analytics and scale elastically, all while being able to control your cloud spend. With other clouds, costs tend to only go one way, up. With SkySQL, we also let you shrink the cost footprint automatically when demand is low. For everyone looking for exceptional scalability and performance of MariaDB databases in the cloud, MariaDB SkySQL is the solution.”
Autoscaling: Dynamically Adjust to Changes in Demand
Unlike first generation cloud databases for MariaDB, SkySQL enables autoscaling of both compute and storage in response to changes in demand. Rules specify when autoscaling is triggered, for example when CPU utilization is above 75% over all replicas sustained for 30 minutes, then a new replica or node will be added to handle the increase. Similarly, when CPU utilization is less than 50% over all replicas for an hour, nodes or a replica is removed. Users always specify the top and bottom threshold so there are never any cost surprises.
When paired with Xpand, MariaDB’s distributed SQL database, autoscaling means never having to worry about unexpected spikes in demand. Double, triple or quadruple the amount of users initially expected? No problem. Xpand on SkySQL with autoscale turned on will automatically add nodes to handle the increase in demand. Once demand is reduced, SkySQL will reduce nodes so you only pay for the resources needed.
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Serverless Analytics: Analyze All Current Data, Pay Only for What Is Used
No ETL is required to do analytics! SkySQL enables operational analytics on active transactional data as well as external data sources using a serverless analytics layer powered by Apache Spark SQL. This approach removes any inconsistencies between an analytical view and a transactional view. Only pay for the CPU consumed for analytics without any need to provision compute. Data scientists also have access to an Apache Zeppelin notebook. The notebook is pre-loaded with examples that demonstrate ways to run analytics on data stored in SkySQL. It can also be used to discover database schemas, running queries on data stored in Amazon S3 and federating queries to join data across SkySQL databases and S3 object storage.
“Our first look at the new MariaDB SkySQL release left us very impressed, especially with the user interface and autoscaling capabilities,” said John Hundley, principal software engineer at Hughes Network Systems. “Our IoT smart power plugs are distributed nationally across hundreds of locations, collecting data from various plugs at any given time. The number of locations and data rates can vary significantly. The user interface is very easy to use and will give us a better view into our database usage. We expect autoscaling to help us in responding to our workload changes to ensure we have the right resources allocated.”
“Cloud-native DBMSs, such as MariaDB SkySQL, use dynamic compute and storage, making their use of resources more efficient and enabling them to deliver optimal performance,” said Carl Olofson, senior vice president, IDC. “The choice of which cloud-native DBMS to use comes down to fit. SkySQL offers scale and availability, the ability to run in multiple clouds, and to handle both OLTP and OLAP workloads. It also leverages skills that are transferable to all clouds. If these qualities are important to you, SkySQL is a cloud-native DBMS to consider.”
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