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CockroachDB fares well on the distributed side of the spectrum, and thus shows all the best properties of this kind of systems: replication, resiliency, horizon

CockroachDB fares well on the distributed side of the spectrum, and thus shows all the best properties of this kind of systems: replication, resiliency, horizontal scalability, modern ops experience. This is no small feat, and - personally - I am sold on it. Yet, looking at its benchmarks (pre 2.0), and knowing how carelessly some enterprise software is written, how would I convince a pointy haired boss to leave the practically monolithic mega-pumped Oracle RAC server he is accustomed to, and go down the distributed route?

scarmig 9y ago
First things first, you'll want a DB that doesn't have cockroach in the name. I'm only slightly kidding.
- Scaevolus 9y ago
  When picking clever pun names, it's important to choose words that executives won't feel silly saying. Spencer Kimball, CEO of Cockroach Labs, created the GIMP in college.
  - deleted 9y ago
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  - patorjk 9y ago
    Years ago I worked on a project where a lot of the code was done in Tcl (pronounced "tickle"). Management would not say "tickle", instead they insisted on saying T-C-L. Tcl is a pretty neat language, and while I was on the project, I couldn't help but wonder how much it's name had held it back.
    - danudey 9y ago
      I call it 'T-C-L' despite being a programmer, because calling it 'tickle' just sounds stupid to me. 'Sequel' for 'SQL' similarly sounds weird so I just say 'S-Q-L'. Maybe that's just me.
  - manigandham 9y ago
    "Kubernetes" can also be considered silly. The industry as a whole tends to not be good at naming.
- ifdefdebug 9y ago
  Have you ever been in a place where you turn on the light in the kitchen at night and what you see is a zillion cockroaches all over the place, on the floor, the walls, cupboards, everywhere, starting all at once to run and seek a dark place to hide in the moment you hit the light switch? Well I have. Looking at that is like looking at "replication" and "resiliency" in liquid state.
- manigandham 9y ago
  Call it CRDB then, which is also used in dev discussions. Perhaps they should officially rebrand it to that.
itgoon 9y ago
You've to appeal to their spreadsheets. Generally, lower costs. If Oracle is well-established, it's going to be tough. It isn't just the cost of Oracle and doing business with them, it's the cost of all the work associated with making the transition. Code-rewrites, retraining ops, and so on. If there's an opportunity for a greenfield, small project that would benefit from having a distributed backend then try that. Be prepared to show that it's not just low-cost, but it is easier to implement.
- qiuyesuifeng 9y ago
  This is a fairly good point. Personally, I believe this also opens a debate about open source software VS proprietary software. Customers of proprietary software companies usually have minimal influence on the priorities and timelines of where/when the product is going. Not to mention the opacity which makes it unable to modify the code or debug it effectively. Most of the time when an issue occurs, you are faced with unclear error codes/messages/documents. If there is no existing workaround or patch, you have to wait until your issue climbs up to the top of the vendor's priority list. Whereas in the open source community, many eyes are examing the source code and many hands (including yourself) are ready to jump in all the time, making it more possible that more bugs are exposed and quicker to get a fix or workaround. If you are open to trying other options, TiDB (https://github.com/pingcap/tidb https://github.com/pingcap/tidb) is also a good choice. A use case is just published on Datanami today: https://www.datanami.com/2018/02/22/hybrid-database-capturing-perishable-insights-yiguo/ https://www.datanami.com/2018/02/22/hybrid-database-capturin...
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scarmig 9y ago

First things first, you'll want a DB that doesn't have cockroach in the name. I'm only slightly kidding.

Scaevolus 9y ago
When picking clever pun names, it's important to choose words that executives won't feel silly saying. Spencer Kimball, CEO of Cockroach Labs, created the GIMP in college.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- patorjk 9y ago
  Years ago I worked on a project where a lot of the code was done in Tcl (pronounced "tickle"). Management would not say "tickle", instead they insisted on saying T-C-L. Tcl is a pretty neat language, and while I was on the project, I couldn't help but wonder how much it's name had held it back.
  - danudey 9y ago
    I call it 'T-C-L' despite being a programmer, because calling it 'tickle' just sounds stupid to me. 'Sequel' for 'SQL' similarly sounds weird so I just say 'S-Q-L'. Maybe that's just me.
- manigandham 9y ago
  "Kubernetes" can also be considered silly. The industry as a whole tends to not be good at naming.
ifdefdebug 9y ago
Have you ever been in a place where you turn on the light in the kitchen at night and what you see is a zillion cockroaches all over the place, on the floor, the walls, cupboards, everywhere, starting all at once to run and seek a dark place to hide in the moment you hit the light switch? Well I have. Looking at that is like looking at "replication" and "resiliency" in liquid state.
manigandham 9y ago
Call it CRDB then, which is also used in dev discussions. Perhaps they should officially rebrand it to that.

itgoon 9y ago

You've to appeal to their spreadsheets. Generally, lower costs. If Oracle is well-established, it's going to be tough. It isn't just the cost of Oracle and doing business with them, it's the cost of all the work associated with making the transition. Code-rewrites, retraining ops, and so on. If there's an opportunity for a greenfield, small project that would benefit from having a distributed backend then try that. Be prepared to show that it's not just low-cost, but it is easier to implement.

qiuyesuifeng 9y ago
This is a fairly good point. Personally, I believe this also opens a debate about open source software VS proprietary software. Customers of proprietary software companies usually have minimal influence on the priorities and timelines of where/when the product is going. Not to mention the opacity which makes it unable to modify the code or debug it effectively. Most of the time when an issue occurs, you are faced with unclear error codes/messages/documents. If there is no existing workaround or patch, you have to wait until your issue climbs up to the top of the vendor's priority list. Whereas in the open source community, many eyes are examing the source code and many hands (including yourself) are ready to jump in all the time, making it more possible that more bugs are exposed and quicker to get a fix or workaround. If you are open to trying other options, TiDB (https://github.com/pingcap/tidb https://github.com/pingcap/tidb) is also a good choice. A use case is just published on Datanami today: https://www.datanami.com/2018/02/22/hybrid-database-capturing-perishable-insights-yiguo/ https://www.datanami.com/2018/02/22/hybrid-database-capturin...

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