4 ms·

Bedrock – A modular, WAN-replicated, blockchain-based database

73 points by dhruvkar 7y ago

prepend 7y ago
This looks promising. A typical blockchain discussion in my org (kind of averse to change with a few hundred database people, smart, but Microsoft stack) goes like this: Someone: “We need a private blockchain for C use case. We’re about to pay consulting firm X a gazillion dollars to implement EthiHyperBitLedget” Architect: “Silly bird, you just need a distributed database...” Someone:”Fine then how do I get one of those” Architect:”you just hire me and I’ll write a bunch of database stuff for you that is a one off spaghetti mess of sql server stuff” 75% of the time they buy that blockchain thing 25% of the time they try to spatchcock the sql thing So far we are 0 for 10 for stuff being useful. If there were a nice distributed database with the features of blockchain I think this could merge my excited Someones with my fuddyduddy Architects.
- jacobush 7y ago
  Wouldn't you clone Stellar or IBMs stuff already if you wanted "corporate" blockchain, i.e. a group of nodes sort of not 100% trusting each other, just keeping an eye on eacher.
- cateye 7y ago
  This is the most mature and out of the box solution I've come across: https://kaleido.io/ https://kaleido.io/ I can totally imagine how Someone would respond to it because it wouldn't automatically get him the Lambo he thinks Blockchain should bring. After a couple of hours, he would say something like: "this isn't a Real® blockchain. We need a proper one." The Architect wouldn't be impressed by it too, because where is the fun if you can't spend 6 months creating spaghetti code?
- natmaka 7y ago
  Isn't https://alacris.io/ https://alacris.io/ pertinent?
cakoose 7y ago
The "blockchain-based" part is misleading. For one, when people say "blockchain", they're almost always including the clever protocol that enables a currency with no central authority. That's the interesting part. Bedrock doesn't do any of that. Without that, "blockchain" is just a simple technique for incremental hashing. Bedrock uses that, but it's not substantial enough to sensibly list "blockchain-based" as one of the three top attributes. (They could have said "Paxos-based". That's the protocol they use to ensure things don't get out of sync.) Just trying to capitalize on the cryptocurrency hype, I guess. FaunaDB did something similar: https://fauna.com/blog/distributed-ledger-without-the-blockchain https://fauna.com/blog/distributed-ledger-without-the-blockc...
- tristan_ph 7y ago
  just curious. Would you consider git as blockchain?
  - cakoose 7y ago
    Hmm... Git's commit chain might be a blockchain (in the minimal sense of the word), since I think it uses that hash chaining technique. But if I were describing Git to others, I wouldn't say "Git is a distributed, blockchain-based VCS" because that would give the wrong idea.
  - pests 7y ago
    Not your op but I personally do not. The way the word has evolved blockchain includes the distributed consensus. I understand there is a concept of linked blocks, into a chain, and technically Bitcoin and folk are those. If someone said blockchain (datastructure) I would understand it as being only the data structure. git is a chain of blocks, kinda. it's distributed. there is no consensus. It's not a blockchain by how most people would define it.
  - SQLite 7y ago
    I do. My argument is here: https://www.fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/blockchain.md https://www.fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/blockchain.md
hlieberman 7y ago
Any distributed database that doesn't advertise that it has hired Kyle Kingsbury (aphyr) and passed him applying Jepsen's new and ever-kinkier stress tests against it makes me instantly suspicious. Appeal to authority? Yes, but, aphyr has earned the title by breaking a whole lot of databases.
bestouff 7y ago
"Bedrock was built by Expensify, and is a networking and distributed transaction layer built atop SQLite, the fastest, most reliable, and most widely distributed database in the world." I didn't know SQLite was a distributed database.
- jasonvorhe 7y ago
  I think it's supposed to mean that it's the most used and not that it is actually distributed.
- rbrtrbrt 7y ago
  I read is as "(most widely distributed) database". The SQLite site phrases it more precisely: "Most Widely Deployed and Used Database Engine" https://www.sqlite.org/mostdeployed.html https://www.sqlite.org/mostdeployed.html
- cyphar 7y ago
  As others have said, "distributed" in this context means "widely used". However, there is work to make SQLite be able to work as a distributed database (and this code is being run in production on LXD clusters)[1]. [1]: https://dqlite.io/ https://dqlite.io/
cloudhead 7y ago
Not a blockchain.
1ba9115454 7y ago
So does this partition the data out to different nodes or replicate the same data to each node?

73 points by dhruvkar 7y ago

This looks promising. A typical blockchain discussion in my org (kind of averse to change with a few hundred database people, smart, but Microsoft stack) goes like this: Someone: “We need a private blockchain for C use case. We’re about to pay consulting firm X a gazillion dollars to implement EthiHyperBitLedget” Architect: “Silly bird, you just need a distributed database...” Someone:”Fine then how do I get one of those” Architect:”you just hire me and I’ll write a bunch of database stuff for you that is a one off spaghetti mess of sql server stuff” 75% of the time they buy that blockchain thing 25% of the time they try to spatchcock the sql thing So far we are 0 for 10 for stuff being useful. If there were a nice distributed database with the features of blockchain I think this could merge my excited Someones with my fuddyduddy Architects.

jacobush 7y ago
Wouldn't you clone Stellar or IBMs stuff already if you wanted "corporate" blockchain, i.e. a group of nodes sort of not 100% trusting each other, just keeping an eye on eacher.
cateye 7y ago
This is the most mature and out of the box solution I've come across: https://kaleido.io/ https://kaleido.io/ I can totally imagine how Someone would respond to it because it wouldn't automatically get him the Lambo he thinks Blockchain should bring. After a couple of hours, he would say something like: "this isn't a Real® blockchain. We need a proper one." The Architect wouldn't be impressed by it too, because where is the fun if you can't spend 6 months creating spaghetti code?
natmaka 7y ago
Isn't https://alacris.io/ https://alacris.io/ pertinent?

cakoose 7y ago

The "blockchain-based" part is misleading. For one, when people say "blockchain", they're almost always including the clever protocol that enables a currency with no central authority. That's the interesting part. Bedrock doesn't do any of that. Without that, "blockchain" is just a simple technique for incremental hashing. Bedrock uses that, but it's not substantial enough to sensibly list "blockchain-based" as one of the three top attributes. (They could have said "Paxos-based". That's the protocol they use to ensure things don't get out of sync.) Just trying to capitalize on the cryptocurrency hype, I guess. FaunaDB did something similar: https://fauna.com/blog/distributed-ledger-without-the-blockchain https://fauna.com/blog/distributed-ledger-without-the-blockc...

tristan_ph 7y ago
just curious. Would you consider git as blockchain?
- cakoose 7y ago
  Hmm... Git's commit chain might be a blockchain (in the minimal sense of the word), since I think it uses that hash chaining technique. But if I were describing Git to others, I wouldn't say "Git is a distributed, blockchain-based VCS" because that would give the wrong idea.
- pests 7y ago
  Not your op but I personally do not. The way the word has evolved blockchain includes the distributed consensus. I understand there is a concept of linked blocks, into a chain, and technically Bitcoin and folk are those. If someone said blockchain (datastructure) I would understand it as being only the data structure. git is a chain of blocks, kinda. it's distributed. there is no consensus. It's not a blockchain by how most people would define it.
- SQLite 7y ago
  I do. My argument is here: https://www.fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/blockchain.md https://www.fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/blockchain.md

hlieberman 7y ago

Any distributed database that doesn't advertise that it has hired Kyle Kingsbury (aphyr) and passed him applying Jepsen's new and ever-kinkier stress tests against it makes me instantly suspicious. Appeal to authority? Yes, but, aphyr has earned the title by breaking a whole lot of databases.

bestouff 7y ago

"Bedrock was built by Expensify, and is a networking and distributed transaction layer built atop SQLite, the fastest, most reliable, and most widely distributed database in the world." I didn't know SQLite was a distributed database.

jasonvorhe 7y ago
I think it's supposed to mean that it's the most used and not that it is actually distributed.
rbrtrbrt 7y ago
I read is as "(most widely distributed) database". The SQLite site phrases it more precisely: "Most Widely Deployed and Used Database Engine" https://www.sqlite.org/mostdeployed.html https://www.sqlite.org/mostdeployed.html
cyphar 7y ago
As others have said, "distributed" in this context means "widely used". However, there is work to make SQLite be able to work as a distributed database (and this code is being run in production on LXD clusters)[1]. [1]: https://dqlite.io/ https://dqlite.io/

cloudhead 7y ago

Not a blockchain.

1ba9115454 7y ago

So does this partition the data out to different nodes or replicate the same data to each node?