5 ms·

> Amazon does not use relational databases Huh?

deskglass 2y ago
Friends say they typically use Dynamo and that using a relational database requires approval from a vp (because of scaling concerns).
- hyperliner 2y ago
  Related: Amazon kicked out Oracle from the company. Somewhere along the same timeline, the operational recommendation for teams was to not use relational databases. https://www.theregister.com/2019/10/16/amazon_ditches_oracle/ https://www.theregister.com/2019/10/16/amazon_ditches_oracle...
  - rrr_oh_man 2y ago
    Kicking out Oracle might have to do with factors outside the usage of relational databases...
    - hyperliner 2y ago
      [dead]
vamega 2y ago
Relational databases are not the preferred storage mechanism at Amazon. If a team wants to use an OLTP relational database it’s possible that it will be a decision they will need to defend at any kind of design review. Of course there are relational databases running OLTP workloads, but it’s far away from the norm. There was a program a while ago to shift many RDBMS systems onto something else.
- emmelaich 2y ago
  So they do joins in code rather than SQL? Wouldn't that risk hiding scaling problems?
  - grogenaut 2y ago
    It can but it's usually more obvious what's happening with code and how to fix it. Amazon wants you to think about the scaling issues while building as they don't want to lose the area under the customer curve on the far right. The theory is that with rdbms you have a magical box that scales vertically until it doesn't. And when it doesn't all you can do is scale back the customers until you fix it with sharding or a re-architecture. Basically you tend to hang yourself with indexes and transactions. Also generally when an RDBMS fails it fails down to like 30% throughput.
    - mickael-kerjean 2y ago
      I recently finished a contract at a company who has gone full on dynamo with the idea that if we have slow queries and dynamo is good for Amazon, then it's good for us too. I've ran some explain on the queries causing issues and of course those queries didn't leverage indexes like they thought ....
      - redditor98654 2y ago
        How did you run explain queries on DynamoDB? Or may be you mean something different and I misunderstood you?
        mickael-kerjean 2y ago
        I ran explain on the original mysql implementation. The basis of the migration project to dynamo was mysql couldn't cope with our scale but that was bullshit
      - bdavisx 2y ago
        That doesn't make sense, you have to specify the index when you're using Dynamo.

Friends say they typically use Dynamo and that using a relational database requires approval from a vp (because of scaling concerns).

hyperliner 2y ago
Related: Amazon kicked out Oracle from the company. Somewhere along the same timeline, the operational recommendation for teams was to not use relational databases. https://www.theregister.com/2019/10/16/amazon_ditches_oracle/ https://www.theregister.com/2019/10/16/amazon_ditches_oracle...
- rrr_oh_man 2y ago
  Kicking out Oracle might have to do with factors outside the usage of relational databases...
  - hyperliner 2y ago
    [dead]

vamega 2y ago

Relational databases are not the preferred storage mechanism at Amazon. If a team wants to use an OLTP relational database it’s possible that it will be a decision they will need to defend at any kind of design review. Of course there are relational databases running OLTP workloads, but it’s far away from the norm. There was a program a while ago to shift many RDBMS systems onto something else.

emmelaich 2y ago
So they do joins in code rather than SQL? Wouldn't that risk hiding scaling problems?
- grogenaut 2y ago
  It can but it's usually more obvious what's happening with code and how to fix it. Amazon wants you to think about the scaling issues while building as they don't want to lose the area under the customer curve on the far right. The theory is that with rdbms you have a magical box that scales vertically until it doesn't. And when it doesn't all you can do is scale back the customers until you fix it with sharding or a re-architecture. Basically you tend to hang yourself with indexes and transactions. Also generally when an RDBMS fails it fails down to like 30% throughput.
  - mickael-kerjean 2y ago
    I recently finished a contract at a company who has gone full on dynamo with the idea that if we have slow queries and dynamo is good for Amazon, then it's good for us too. I've ran some explain on the queries causing issues and of course those queries didn't leverage indexes like they thought ....
    - redditor98654 2y ago
      How did you run explain queries on DynamoDB? Or may be you mean something different and I misunderstood you?
      - mickael-kerjean 2y ago
        I ran explain on the original mysql implementation. The basis of the migration project to dynamo was mysql couldn't cope with our scale but that was bullshit
    - bdavisx 2y ago
      That doesn't make sense, you have to specify the index when you're using Dynamo.