PolarDB:Scenarios

Process a large number of transactions with low latency

Transactions happen in Internet business. Transaction systems are one of the core components in information systems. Business continuity, transactional consistency, and system security are the fundamentals to ensure that transaction systems can run as expected. In the Internet era, transaction systems that can run with heavy load and low latency for a long time become the trend.

PolarDB-X uses the self-developed X-Paxos protocol to reach a consensus among a distributed set of nodes. In PolarDB-X, storage nodes in a three-node architecture use the X-Paxos protocol. When a majority of storage nodes agree on one of the proposed values, the system reaches a consensus on the value. This ensures strong consistency and achieves a zero recovery point objective (RPO) in failover or disaster recovery scenarios. When a distributed transaction is executed across nodes, PolarDB-X ensures transactional consistency based on the Timestamp Oracle (TSO) policy and the multiversion concurrency control (MVCC) method. PolarDB-X has passed the certification test of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) and has been awarded Stability Certification of Financial-grade Distributed Databases for Transaction Processing. PolarDB-X that delivers a stable high-performance database service has been used to support business peaks during Double 11 shopping festivals for 12 consecutive years.

Scale resources when the peak-to-valley ratio is high

If the peak-to-valley ratio is 20 or higher during a specific period of time, the difference between peak and off-peak load is considered large. This scenario can occur in flash sales, group buying, and time-limited offers. In this scenario, system administrators often struggle to control storage capacity and costs. In this case, smooth scaling and optimization of costs become essential.

PolarDB-X allows you to scale out distributed databases in a linear manner. During a scale-out, PolarDB-X pushes down the calculation processes and ensures data consistency. The scale-out does not affect your business. PolarDB-X performs traffic control to ensure the stable running of business during the scale-out. PolarDB-X can also help you clean and archive historical data to reduce storage costs.

Store data in a centralized manner

This scenario is also referred to as data centralization or data collation. In this scenario, an operational data store (ODS) is used to store enterprise business data and aggregate data sources that are vertically split. In this scenario, you need to use databases that support highly concurrent write operations, mass storage, multidimensional queries, and low-cost data processing.

• PolarDB-X provides a scale-up, scale-down, scale-out, or scale-in based on the amount of data to be accessed and stored. This helps meet the business requirements for highly concurrent write operations and mass storage.
• PolarDB-X supports DML queries and large transactions based on parallel computing. PolarDB-X allows you to run scripts in batches and makes script running efficient.
• PolarDB-X provides global secondary indexes (GSIs) that allow you to query data from multiple dimensions without the need to consider sharding rules.
• The binary logging feature records the data changes after transactions are executed in distributed databases to ensure that transactions in the databases are ordered. PolarDB-X is compatible with the binary log formats in MySQL and the MySQL syntax that is used to dump databases. This simplifies the process to consume output data.

Transform databases from a traditional architecture to a distributed architecture

The growth of business can cause an increasing amount of data generated. If the maximum capacity of standalone databases is about to be exceeded or large single tables cause performance and maintenance issues, you can transform databases from a traditional architecture to a distributed architecture. This helps resolve the preceding issues in a cost-effective manner. If you want to transform information systems from a traditional architecture to a distributed architecture, one of the key difficult points is to transform databases. One of the core demands that database users have is to use distributed databases in the same way as standalone databases.

PolarDB-X provides transparent distribution for databases. You can connect to, develop, and manage databases in PolarDB-X in the same manner in which you connect to, develop, and manage standalone MySQL databases. PolarDB-X significantly shortens the transformation period of databases and retains the technology stack used by the R&D and O&M personnel at the maximum level. PolarDB-X helps you smoothly migrate data from standalone databases to distributed databases. In PolarDB-X, you can execute DDL statements to convert large tables into partitioned tables. PolarDB-X provides distributed transactions and binary logging that is compatible with MySQL to help you efficiently transform databases from a standalone architecture to a distributed architecture. The binary logging feature records data changes when data returns to distributed databases.

Replace commercial databases with databases developed by Chinese vendors

Large-scale enterprises need to use information systems developed by Chinese vendors when they digitalize their business. As the core component of their information systems, databases must also be developed by Chinese vendors. Therefore, public institutions and enterprises in the telecommunication, finance, and energy sectors have replaced commercial databases with databases developed by Chinese vendors.

PolarDB-X is a cloud native distributed database service that is developed by Alibaba Cloud. You can perform independent O&M on databases in PolarDB-X. PolarDB-X provides multiple deployment modes. You can deploy database instances on Alibaba Cloud or Apsara Stack. PolarDB-X also supports DBStack and the software edition PolarDB-X Lite. PolarDB-X has helped more than 100 enterprises replace commercial databases with PolarDB-X instances and migrate core business data to distributed databases. PolarDB-X also provides complete technical support. The delivery team and service team of PolarDB-X provide technical training and architecture consultation on distributed databases.

Run transactional and analytical queries in hybrid mode

Business on the Internet tends to be real-time and intelligent. Therefore, you may need to perform hybrid transaction/analytical processing (HTAP) in the same data source. To meet these requirements, databases must be easy-to-use and can ensure data consistency and security.

PolarDB-X provides parallel computing and auto scaling to support real-time analysis of online data and reporting. PolarDB-X supports intelligent read/write splitting and analysis of read-only replicas. This helps isolate resources when you perform online transaction processing (OLTP) and online analytical processing (OLAP) queries. PolarDB-X provides a unified platform for data queries and automatically selects a query execution engine. PolarDB-X supports transactional processing and analytical processing on the same dataset. This reduces the cost and latency of an extract, transform, load (ETL) process.