May 30th officially marks the end of the GORDA project. I had the privilege to be involved in it from the very beginning. I was there in the kickoff meeting, back in October 2004, and I was there in the last review meeting, last Friday. Both of these two meetings took place in Braga at University of Minho.
In this last review, everything went smooth. Nevertheless, I have to stress one of the project deliverables, the prototype demonstration. It was a live prototype demonstration of a replicated database using all GORDA software packages. The demo happened without any glitch whatsoever and I actually felt very proud as I watched all concepts and ideas, that we have had for the past three and a half years, implemented, deployed and executing nicely for the reviewers.
This demonstration presented two different replication scenarios: i) Sequoia+MySQL based master-slave replication; ii) PostgreSQL based, multi-master update everywhere replication using certification and additional autonomic cluster management tools. Pretty much all the software developed is hosted or referenced in GORDA website, so If you just feel curious, feel free to sneak a peak. We have GORDA implementations for PostgreSQL, MySQL (roughly), Sequoia and Apache Derby. Not all of them implement the fully GAPI (GORDA API) set as defined in the API reference, but still they show that the concept/model is feasible.
Now that the project is over, I am wondering what will happen with GORDA legacy. I believe that at least one of the project partners, will merge GORDA contributions into some of their products. As for the rest of the open source database communities, I am still not sure what is the impact of GORDA on their concerns about replication. Well, at least in the long run it is not clear. Currently, every time I engage in some database replication discussion (outside academia circles) the speech almost instantaneously includes "master-slave" expression. It is kind of like a tunnel vision around primary-backup replication. People are in this mindset for a long time, and it is hard to make them understand that there are other ways of doing things (eventual with a different kind of trade-offs). Regarding GORDA, I sometimes am afraid that after preaching to people about GAPI they would just get back to me with something similar: " - So... Can we do master-slave on top of it?". Probably, the industry is not ready for anything different yet... I mean, GORDA has prototypes on multi-master update everywhere replication using certification, although sub-optimal they are proof-of-concept implementations. They prove the very feasibility of these "other" approaches. So I guess my question is: "If you are a database replication solution provider, would it be interesting for you to have other solutions than master-slave replication (for instance: row based, no data partitioning, master-master replication)? Apart from very specific situations, Is there any user demand for anything other than primary-backup?"
Personally, I believe that some of GORDA ideas will make it into the market, but to what extent and within which time-frame is not that clear for me. If at least GAPI model gets embraced by open source databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL and Apache Derby) it will be a major achievement and a major break-through. Honestly, I like to think that last demonstration we did on Firday, was actually the first of many others. Additionally, I will continue to maintain and support parts of the GORDA software, either because I need them (in my PhD thesis for instance) or because I have sensed some interest from the community (which has already resulted in a trip to California for me and Alfrânio to present some of this at MySQL Conference).
By now, if you are still reading this post, you should check GORDA website for details and software. The public deliverables with all the documentation eventually will have their final versions uploaded and published, but the software is already available. Feel free to provide some feedback, and if you have anything to add in the part of the user demands with respect to other solutions than master-slave replication I would be delighted to know about them.
Final remark: inevitably, GORDA's end felt like we had "finished writing a book", but also that we "had began writing a new one."
Showing posts with label databases. Show all posts
Showing posts with label databases. Show all posts
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
MySQL Users Conference 2008
Yeah !!! We win a trip to California after working too hard on a replication plugin for MySQL.
It was a 30 hours journey to arrive in California. The goal was to attend the MySQL Users Conference and show ideas developed in the context of the GORDA Project.
Mission accomplished my friends.
Me and my Friend Luis met a lot of interesting people and had passioned discussions on replication. Unfortunately, there was no much time to attend talks even the one given by Werner Vogels. There were more than 2000 people thinking on MySQL, learning a little bit more on it, doing business, doing contacts and hiring people. I was not expecting such atmosphere: everyone was breathing MySQL. Even the competition was attend the conference. There were many guys from Microsoft, IBM and Oracle.
In our spare time, we went to San Francisco to see the Golden Gate and Alcatraz. While driving through the street of Santa Clara, Palo Alto, etc, etc we came across buildings from important enterprises such as Google, IBM, Yahoo, Oracle, Microsoft and from important universities such as Berkley and Standford.
Nice trip, but I am afraid that I got excited for driving a Mustang as I did not pay attention to the traffic lights. Most likely my next credit card bill will give me a stroke.
Cheers.
It was a 30 hours journey to arrive in California. The goal was to attend the MySQL Users Conference and show ideas developed in the context of the GORDA Project.
Mission accomplished my friends.
Me and my Friend Luis met a lot of interesting people and had passioned discussions on replication. Unfortunately, there was no much time to attend talks even the one given by Werner Vogels. There were more than 2000 people thinking on MySQL, learning a little bit more on it, doing business, doing contacts and hiring people. I was not expecting such atmosphere: everyone was breathing MySQL. Even the competition was attend the conference. There were many guys from Microsoft, IBM and Oracle.
In our spare time, we went to San Francisco to see the Golden Gate and Alcatraz. While driving through the street of Santa Clara, Palo Alto, etc, etc we came across buildings from important enterprises such as Google, IBM, Yahoo, Oracle, Microsoft and from important universities such as Berkley and Standford.
Nice trip, but I am afraid that I got excited for driving a Mustang as I did not pay attention to the traffic lights. Most likely my next credit card bill will give me a stroke.
Cheers.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Aurora!
Do we really need another blog about computers, technology, software architecture?
I mean, seriously... If we take a look at some on-line blog statistics, we get astonished with the amount of information that is published on a daily basis. Nevertheless, we feel that there is still some room for our opinions and we really like rambling about our favorite subjects: databases, transaction processing, data replication, clusters, distributed and parallel systems. Even if these topics are not matters of regular conversations, we think that they still conceal a whole range of interesting problems that should be reasoned about.
Despite the fact that there are several websites, blogs, forums on these same subjects, in which important people from academia and industry express their opinions, we believe that this one can make a difference. The key point is that we are not seeking fame by publishing scientific papers on these matters, though it happens, or becoming a successful entrepreneur with a fat bank account and a product to sale (not that having such a bank account would not be a nice thing). As such, the content presented in this site is biased only by our knowledge and our passion. And yes, passion may even blind us, but you are more than welcome to ring the bells and sound the alarm. Most often these matters come into our minds, either because they are related to our work or just because it happened, and we drift aimlessly between thoughts and theories.
A little note about ourselves:
- We believe that there are so many wonderful things other than computer science and we really enjoy them;
- Though we are not genius, enlightened or bright people, we are not dummies also (at least we like to think that we are not);
- Also, we are not techies or computer geeks, we just like a good discussion.
Anyway, we want this to be an enjoyable ride, sometimes with new and exciting ideas, others with controversial points of view, raising the tone of criticism. We are departing to an uncharted parallel universe in which free thinking and free speech are brought together in a perfect synergy, and guess what... we want company. We are at the shores of a knowledge ocean and we have just started to dip our toes in it.
As of what it is to come... should we say: "Here be dragons" ? Most certainly. Jump in. Criticize us. Make us pointless by debating our ideas and not by ignoring them. After all... We hope to learn from you much more than you will be learning from us. This is our master-plan.
I mean, seriously... If we take a look at some on-line blog statistics, we get astonished with the amount of information that is published on a daily basis. Nevertheless, we feel that there is still some room for our opinions and we really like rambling about our favorite subjects: databases, transaction processing, data replication, clusters, distributed and parallel systems. Even if these topics are not matters of regular conversations, we think that they still conceal a whole range of interesting problems that should be reasoned about.
Despite the fact that there are several websites, blogs, forums on these same subjects, in which important people from academia and industry express their opinions, we believe that this one can make a difference. The key point is that we are not seeking fame by publishing scientific papers on these matters, though it happens, or becoming a successful entrepreneur with a fat bank account and a product to sale (not that having such a bank account would not be a nice thing). As such, the content presented in this site is biased only by our knowledge and our passion. And yes, passion may even blind us, but you are more than welcome to ring the bells and sound the alarm. Most often these matters come into our minds, either because they are related to our work or just because it happened, and we drift aimlessly between thoughts and theories.
A little note about ourselves:
- We believe that there are so many wonderful things other than computer science and we really enjoy them;
- Though we are not genius, enlightened or bright people, we are not dummies also (at least we like to think that we are not);
- Also, we are not techies or computer geeks, we just like a good discussion.
Anyway, we want this to be an enjoyable ride, sometimes with new and exciting ideas, others with controversial points of view, raising the tone of criticism. We are departing to an uncharted parallel universe in which free thinking and free speech are brought together in a perfect synergy, and guess what... we want company. We are at the shores of a knowledge ocean and we have just started to dip our toes in it.
As of what it is to come... should we say: "Here be dragons" ? Most certainly. Jump in. Criticize us. Make us pointless by debating our ideas and not by ignoring them. After all... We hope to learn from you much more than you will be learning from us. This is our master-plan.
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