3 ms·

I feel like I learn of a new DBMS a couple times a month. Can anyone comment on how well these upstart DBMSes tend to be tested / proven?

taneliv 8y ago
TimescaleDB is merely a PostgreSQL extension, not a complete DBMS all by itself.
brightball 8y ago
If I recall correctly, this is just Postgres with extra handling around time series data isn’t it?
gaius 8y ago
It’s just a plugin to Postgres, you just convert the tables you want to it’s type and otherwise it’s all the same. No need to learn new databases all the time, Postgres does it all, regular tables, “documents” (JSON), timeseries, spatial/GIS, you name it.
cevian 8y ago
(Timescale engineer here) We are an extension on top of Postgres and not a whole new DBMS. That means that we inherit a lot of the reliability / stability of Postgres (critically we do not change the WAL/data on disk format which leads to the fact that even as a young database we don't loose data). What we provide on top of Postgres are significant optimization aimed at time-series data. Postgres is optimized for relational data, and it requires significant work to optimize it for time-series data workloads on both the insert and query side. TimescaleDB provides automatic, adaptive partitioning of time-series tables to make management of time-series tables both easier and more efficient. We add new time-based analytical functions as well as improve query planning and optimization.
twunde 8y ago
For new databases that I'm interested in, I generally check if there's a Jepsen analysis for it (https://jepsen.io/analyses https://jepsen.io/analyses) or whether it's being open-sourced by a company that's been using it in production for a while like Foundation DB (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16877395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16877395). In either of these two cases I would say it's well-tested. Otherwise, it's often hit or miss. Thankfully the number of new db products I've seen is fewer than the halcyon days of the MongoDB wave (2011-2014) and tend to be a bit more focused on specific problems that the db solves.
- pritambaral 8y ago
  Jepsen only tests distributed operation. For non-distributed databases (like PostgreSQL, which is — for the purposes of this discussion — what TimescaleDB is), Jepsen does not apply.

taneliv 8y ago

TimescaleDB is merely a PostgreSQL extension, not a complete DBMS all by itself.

brightball 8y ago

If I recall correctly, this is just Postgres with extra handling around time series data isn’t it?

gaius 8y ago

It’s just a plugin to Postgres, you just convert the tables you want to it’s type and otherwise it’s all the same. No need to learn new databases all the time, Postgres does it all, regular tables, “documents” (JSON), timeseries, spatial/GIS, you name it.

cevian 8y ago

(Timescale engineer here) We are an extension on top of Postgres and not a whole new DBMS. That means that we inherit a lot of the reliability / stability of Postgres (critically we do not change the WAL/data on disk format which leads to the fact that even as a young database we don't loose data). What we provide on top of Postgres are significant optimization aimed at time-series data. Postgres is optimized for relational data, and it requires significant work to optimize it for time-series data workloads on both the insert and query side. TimescaleDB provides automatic, adaptive partitioning of time-series tables to make management of time-series tables both easier and more efficient. We add new time-based analytical functions as well as improve query planning and optimization.

twunde 8y ago

For new databases that I'm interested in, I generally check if there's a Jepsen analysis for it (https://jepsen.io/analyses https://jepsen.io/analyses) or whether it's being open-sourced by a company that's been using it in production for a while like Foundation DB (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16877395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16877395). In either of these two cases I would say it's well-tested. Otherwise, it's often hit or miss. Thankfully the number of new db products I've seen is fewer than the halcyon days of the MongoDB wave (2011-2014) and tend to be a bit more focused on specific problems that the db solves.

pritambaral 8y ago
Jepsen only tests distributed operation. For non-distributed databases (like PostgreSQL, which is — for the purposes of this discussion — what TimescaleDB is), Jepsen does not apply.