MariaDB updates MariaDB SkySQL cloud database, expands support for AWS
MariaDB announced major new updates to MariaDB SkySQL cloud database, including expanded support for Amazon Web Services (AWS).
With this release, SkySQL gains new strength with transparent high availability that immunizes applications against database failures and Xpand, MariaDB’s distributed SQL database that delivers massive scalability. Xpand is now GA in SkySQL and is at least a third less expensive than other distributed SQL options in AWS or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
“With MariaDB SkySQL now offering transparent high availability and elastic scalability for millions of transactions per second, enterprises can confidently move their systems of record to the cloud even if they previously relied on specialized hardware such as Oracle RAC or Exadata,” said Jags Ramnarayan, chief product officer at MariaDB Corporation.
“SkySQL frees customers from the confines of legacy deployments, to be able to modernize and realize the benefits of the cloud. There has never been a better time to make the move.”
Powerful scale and HA without the surprise IOPS cost
SkySQL now fully supports AWS. SkySQL implements PrivateLink for the most secure connection between the customer and SkySQL virtual private clouds (VPCs).
This release also enables configurable IOPS to unlock the full spectrum of performance while keeping pricing predictable so customers do not get stuck with a surprise bill. Using SkySQL Monitoring, customers get a multi-cloud bird’s-eye view into all their databases deployed across AWS and GCP.
Database invincibility with an invisibility cape
Today’s businesses are always-on with a zero-tolerance policy for any downtime. SkySQL is invincible, able to survive any disaster, and implements transparent high availability features that shield the application from ever knowing that a change happened in the database.
The hidden power comes from MaxScale and Xpand.
MaxScale, MariaDB’s advanced database proxy, acts as an invisibility cape, hiding the database layer from the application and coordinating automatic failover, transaction replay, load balancing and read/write splitting.
Unlike other DBaaS offerings, MaxScale is included in all SkySQL multi-node deployments – at no additional cost. This release of SkySQL lets customers deploy additional and more powerful MaxScale instances to run in an active/active configuration in order to increase redundancy and handle more concurrent connections.
This configuration, teamed with SkySQL’s Kubernetes foundation, provides a robust high availability setup so failover happens automatically, and recovery of lost capacity is nearly instant and without downtime as opposed to other clouds that require manual interaction or applications to handle database failures.
Xpand is designed to tolerate infrastructure failures and maintain availability by storing multiple copies of data on different database nodes. This release adds zone awareness for Xpand deployments to ensure that redundant data is kept in all the right places and survives if a zone goes down entirely.
Xpand alters the relational universe
As businesses reach more individuals around the world through digital channels, they need to ensure their database can keep up with increased demand while also maintaining data integrity and high availability.
Previous options stood in the way of reaching these new scalability and data integrity goals. Xpand delivers all the benefits of relational databases while freeing customers to expand to new heights and defeat scalability limitations once and for all.
Xpand in SkySQL is fully optimized for performance and scalability, delivering a 2.5x improvement on throughput and 4x improvement on latency over the tech preview release. Xpand in SkySQL is now GA and supported for mission-critical production workloads.
Compared to other distributed SQL options available in AWS and GCP, SkySQL not only offers superior performance but also is the lowest cost option in the industry, saving at least a third the total cost.
“We’ve found MariaDB Xpand to be an extremely robust solution,” said Doug Churchill, CEO, ShortStack. “Since we switched to Xpand, we have not had a single outage or any downtime. It has held up to all our business demands including high traffic spikes during seasonal usage.”
With SkySQL, customers have the freedom to go anywhere – any cloud, any workload and any scale. SkySQL delivers unmatched flexibility and massive scalability in a cloud database that keeps up with customers’ changing needs while saving 90% of their database cost.
Since its introduction last year, SkySQL has found rapid adoption among customers coming from different databases such as Oracle, SQL Server, Db2, MySQL, PostgreSQL and MariaDB for a wide variety of use cases.