4 ms·

Question for the FoundationDB gurus that are hanging out on this thread: How well does it deal with spotty connectivity? I'm asking because I work on mobile rob

Question for the FoundationDB gurus that are hanging out on this thread: How well does it deal with spotty connectivity? I'm asking because I work on mobile robots, and WiFi and/or LTE connections are always coming and going in unpredictable ways as the vehicle moves about it's environment. Reconnecting every few minutes is normal.

djtriptych 9y ago
You should have seen their trade show demos, where they'd demonstrate fault tolerance by literally powering down random computers and unplugging network cables, while visualizing how the system managed fault tolerance. ah found it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLGYMdo2q2g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLGYMdo2q2g
voidmain 9y ago
The fault tolerance is pretty much flawless. You won't be able to get the database "stuck" or see anomalies. But performance is going to suck if you run server nodes over unreliable connections. I have trouble seeing a FoundationDB cluster running on mobile robots as more than a trade show gimmick. Albeit an awesome gimmick. So in summary you should totally do that.
- dbcurtis 9y ago
  I can see that. There are various vectors to performance. I hear you saying transactions per second would be unimpressive. A couple of less time sensitive applications are: 1. distrubuting information the entire fleet should eventually know, 2. event log aggregation with fine-grained time alignment among nodes. Both are probably silly problems to solve with a database, killing houseflys with sledghammers and all that, but it never hurts to explore creative tool misuse :)
  - alexis_read 9y ago
    I think Scuttlebutt might be more suitable for you? Extract the text from a conversation on each robot. The offline story is easy here. The other option would be some sort or CRDT-based system - Antidote perhaps?

4 ms·

Question for the FoundationDB gurus that are hanging out on this thread: How well does it deal with spotty connectivity? I'm asking because I work on mobile rob

by dbcurtis 9y ago

djtriptych 9y ago
You should have seen their trade show demos, where they'd demonstrate fault tolerance by literally powering down random computers and unplugging network cables, while visualizing how the system managed fault tolerance. ah found it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLGYMdo2q2g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLGYMdo2q2g
voidmain 9y ago
The fault tolerance is pretty much flawless. You won't be able to get the database "stuck" or see anomalies. But performance is going to suck if you run server nodes over unreliable connections. I have trouble seeing a FoundationDB cluster running on mobile robots as more than a trade show gimmick. Albeit an awesome gimmick. So in summary you should totally do that.
- dbcurtis 9y ago
  I can see that. There are various vectors to performance. I hear you saying transactions per second would be unimpressive. A couple of less time sensitive applications are: 1. distrubuting information the entire fleet should eventually know, 2. event log aggregation with fine-grained time alignment among nodes. Both are probably silly problems to solve with a database, killing houseflys with sledghammers and all that, but it never hurts to explore creative tool misuse :)
  - alexis_read 9y ago
    I think Scuttlebutt might be more suitable for you? Extract the text from a conversation on each robot. The offline story is easy here. The other option would be some sort or CRDT-based system - Antidote perhaps?