Overview | White Papers | Shared-Disk Clustering | Multi-Table Index

Overview

ScaleDB is a pluggable storage engine for MySQL that delivers enterprise-class scalability, dynamic cloud elasticity and high-availability. It delivers all of these advantages, while maintaining compatibility with MySQL applications and tools. ScaleDB uses a shared-disk architecture, where each node in the cluster has access to the entire database. As a result, ScaleDB clusters handle failure or removal of database nodes, without a problem. Furthermore, as your database usage increases, you can simply add nodes to scale performance. In addition to leveraging shared-disk clustering, ScaleDB employs an innovative Multi-Table Index that also delivers significant advantages decribed below.

ScaleDB for MySQL provides the following capabilities:

  • Cloud elasticity (adding/removing nodes on the fly)
  • Enterprise-class high-availability
  • Compatibility with MySQL applications and tools
  • ACID compliance
  • Innovative high-speed indexing
  • Graceful fault-tolerance
  • Automatic data recovery
  • Plug-and-Cluster™ simplicity
  • Shared-disk clustering architecture
  • High-performance transaction processing
  • Row-level locking
  • Multi-node concurrency control

In keeping with the demands of the enterprise market, ScaleDB rigorously adheres to the principles of ACID compliance.

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White Papers

Shared-Disk Clustering

Title

Description

Format

ScaleDB Overview

Datasheet describing ScaleDB (2 pages)

PDF

Database Virtualization in the Cloud New

Reshaping the cloud database landscape

PDF

Shared-Disk Clustering

Datasheet describing shared-disk clustering (2 pages)

PDF

A Primer on Database Clustering Architectures

White paper explaining shared-disk and shared-nothing architectures (4 pages)

PDF

Cache Accelerator Server (CAS)

Datasheet describing our shared-disk/storage solution
(2 pages)

PDF

Clustered Cloud Database Storage Engine

White Paper providing a look into ScaleDB's architecture and capabilities (15 pages)

PDF

Shared-Disk vs.
Shared-Nothing

White paper providing a point-by-point comparison between the shared-disk and shared-nothing architectures. (18 pages)

PDF

Cloud Computing & Databases

White paper looks at the database needs of cloud computing and compares shared-disk and shared-nothing (6 pages)

PDF

MySQL 2009 Presentation

Moshe Shadmon’s speech from MySQL 2009 you can listen to it here as well (it takes a while), but you'll want to see the PowerPoint version as well.

PPT

Multi-Table Index

Title

Description

Format

Multi-Table Indexing

Datasheet describing ScaleDB’s multi-table indexing
(2 pages)

PDF

Index Overview

A brief description of ScaleDB’s Index (4 pages)

PDF

ScaleDB’s Data Structure

White paper describing ScaleDB’s unique index (17 pages)

PDF

A Fast Index to Semi-Structured Data

White paper describing the utility of the Multi-Table Index for addressing semi-structured data like XML (10 pages)

PDF

Indexing Open Schemas

White paper describing how ScaleDB’s index handles open schemas used by semi-structured data such as XML.
(20 pages)

PDF

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Shared-Disk Clustering

Shared-disk clustering has long been associated with mission-critical applications. IBM’s IMS® and Oracle’s RAC® databases run many  banks, ATM networks, and Global 2000 companies. Shared-disk clustering delivers high-availability through redundant nodes that share the data and provide inherent fail-over and recovery. Unlike shared-nothing, which imposes a rigid design for static workloads, shared-disk is able to adapt to the changing needs of the users. For this reason, shared-disk is the architecture of choice for Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) applications. Because it enables multiple nodes to process data from a single data store, shared-disk is also used with some Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) applications where the data is stored in a central location.

Until now, the shared-disk architecture has only been available for extremely expensive commercial databases. ScaleDB brings this high-end architecture to MySQL, delivering it for pennies on the dollar compared to commercial databases.

Vern Watts, ScaleDB’s chief architect, designed the company’s shared-disk architecture. Vern is known as the father of shared-disk clustering. In his 48 year career at IBM, Vern was the architect of IBM’s IMS® database, which released a shared-disk implementation in 1980, a full twenty years before Oracle released RAC. IBM IMS remains the workhorse of IT systems around the world.

The Main Benefits of ScaleDB's Shared-Disk Clustering Include:

  • Eliminates data partitioning or sharding (and repartitioning)
  • Elasticity: Database nodes can be added/removed on the fly
  • Inherent and seamless fault-tolerance
  • Simple Plug-and-Cluster expansion of your cluster
  • Enables powerful clusters based on low-cost commodity hardware
  • Dynamically adapts to changing usage demands
  • Scales CPU performance by adding compute nodes
  • Scales I/O performance by adding storage nodes

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Multi-Table Index

B-tree indexing only indexes the information inside distinct tables. ScaleDB’s Multi-Table Index indexes both the information inside the tables and the relationships between those tables. Because the index understands the relationships between tables, it is able to perform multi-tables joins with the performance of a single-table lookup.

Main Benefits include:

  • The performance of materialized views, without the set-up, maintenance or stale data inherent in materialized views
  • Referential integrity is inherently maintained with minimal overhead
  • Small memory footprint (typically 15% - 25% of B-tree equivalent, depending on key length), reduced storage requirements
  • Built and manipulated using SQL
  • No special coding requirement in application design and development

ScaleDB’s Multi-Table Index technology leverages the indexing technologies utilized in routing and some in-memory databases. Significant improvements on these indexing technologies—developed over a 15 year period and patented by ScaleDB—enabling ScaleDB to deliver a significant advance to general purpose disk-based databases.

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