5 ms·
I don't think there's any question at this point that Spanner is really cool. The vast majority of cloud databases out there (even brand-new ones like Azure's C
by brandur 9y ago
I don't think there's any question at this point that Spanner is really cool. The vast majority of cloud databases out there (even brand-new ones like Azure's Cosmos) are still implicitly trying to convince you that not having ACID transactions is something that won't matter very much, and that scale is by far more important, which isn't true. Google hasn't taken that approach with Spanner, and it's a breath of fresh air.
I'd throw one downside out there though: lock in. While queries use standard SQL syntax [1], all write operations are performed via a very non-standard GRPC API [2]. I think the team certainly considered this and weighed the trade offs, but it does mean that after you're on
Spanner, you're on Spanner forever.
[1] https://cloud.google.com/spanner/docs/query-syntax https://cloud.google.com/spanner/docs/query-syntax
[2] https://cloud.google.com/spanner/docs/reference/rpc/ https://cloud.google.com/spanner/docs/reference/rpc/
- boulos 9y agoWe're hoping to add more compatibility layers, but the semantics of reading updates within a transaction are what gave the team pause. If you don't need that semantic, it's relatively straightforward (I assume we'll see this happen either directly by us, or from the community). Disclosure: I work on Google Cloud, but not on Spanner.
- fdsfsafasfdas 9y agoAny chance that Google Cloud will ever expose access to F1?
- boulos 9y agoThe point of the SQL layer now merged into Spanner is so that people don't have to run F1 or something like it on top. I'd expect continual improvements there, especially if enough folks say "I'll move if X"
- fdsfsafasfdas 9y agoWell, the hope would be that it would allow read-write-read sql transactions, which to my understanding will never be implemented in Spanner.
- bogomipz 9y agoAny insight into why read-write-read sql transactions will never make it into Spanner?
- elvinyung 9y agoNot sure if "never", but from the new Spanner paper[1]: > While we have seen comparatively little demand for this feature internally, supporting such semantics improves compatibility with other SQL systems and their ecosystems and is on our long-term radar. [1] http://dl.acm.org/authorize?N37621 http://dl.acm.org/authorize?N37621
- bogomipz 9y agoThanks for the clarification and the link.
- curiousDog 9y agoAlso important to note that it's a NewSQL system, not a full blown RDBMS. You can't lift and shift your MySQL application and expect full blown horizontal scalability and such.
- makmanalp 9y agoI'm surprised no one has challenged this yet - if there is anything that cloud spanner does better than most things out there, it's "full-blown horizontal scalability"! There are very few systems out there that have tackled the issue of scaling beyond cross-AZ in a non-bullshit way.
- dsp1234 9y agoYou can't lift and shift your MySQL I'm surprised no one has challenged this yet Are you saying that a company could lift and shift MySQL then?