The Architecture Overview of OceanBase DataBase

Summary

OceanBase is a highly scalable distributed SQL database developed by Alibaba, known for its use during the Double 11 shopping event in China. It supports both OLTP and OLAP workloads simultaneously, offering high performance and real-time analytics in a single system. With features like horizontal scalability, strong consistency, and fault tolerance, OceanBase powers mission-critical systems for companies in e-commerce, finance, telecom, and more. Its multi-tenant architecture ensures efficient resource management while delivering robust database functionality. Ideal for high-concurrency, large-scale applications, OceanBase provides a cost-effective solution with performance on par with traditional monolithic databases.

Takeaways

• 😀 OceanBase is a distributed SQL database developed by Alibaba and Ant Group, and it has been used to support high-scale events like China's Double 11 shopping festival.
• 😀 Double 11 is comparable to Amazon Prime Day but even bigger, making OceanBase’s ability to handle massive scale highly significant.
• 😀 OceanBase has been successfully used by over 400 customers across critical industries such as payment, accounting, and customer information management.
• 😀 The database achieved a peak of 61 million queries per second during the Double 11 event, showcasing its high performance and scalability.
• 😀 OceanBase supports both Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) and Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) workloads in one unified system.
• 😀 The system is highly cost-efficient, with storage costs being around one-third of those associated with MySQL databases, making it a more affordable option.
• 😀 OceanBase utilizes Paxos and two-phase commit protocols for high availability and atomic distributed transactions.
• 😀 The database’s architecture includes multi-tenant resource isolation, and each cluster is divided into zones, ensuring scalability and resource efficiency.
• 😀 OceanBase provides strong consistency and linear scalability while maintaining high single-node performance, making it ideal for both large-scale applications and high concurrency scenarios.
• 😀 OceanBase is an open-source database, allowing developers to explore and modify its source code via its GitHub repository.
• 😀 OceanBase has been utilized in mission-critical applications by prominent companies like ICBC, China Telecom, and Alipay, highlighting its reliability and performance in diverse industries.

Q & A

What is Oceanbase, and what notable event did it support in China?

Oceanbase is a distributed SQL database that supported China's biggest online shopping event, Double 11, which is similar to Amazon's Prime Day but on a much larger scale.

How does Oceanbase compare to traditional monolithic databases like MySQL or Oracle?

Oceanbase combines the advantages of traditional monolithic databases, like full SQL support and high performance on a single node, with the scalability and high availability features of distributed systems.

What makes Oceanbase suitable for high-concurrency scenarios like Double 11?

Oceanbase is designed for high scalability, full SQL support, and strong consistency. Its architecture supports high concurrency, making it ideal for peak events like Double 11, where transactions can reach millions of requests per second.

What is the peak query performance achieved by Oceanbase during Double 11?

During Double 11 in 2019, Oceanbase reached a peak of 61.61 million queries per second (QPS), showcasing its capability to handle massive loads.

How does Oceanbase handle real-time operational analytics (OLAP) along with transactional workloads (OLTP)?

Oceanbase supports both OLTP and OLAP workloads in a unified system. For heavy OLAP workloads, it uses individual replicas to handle analytics, while lighter OLAP workloads can run alongside OLTP on the same replica.

Can Oceanbase be used in both transactional and analytical scenarios, and how does it manage them?

Yes, Oceanbase supports both transactional (OLTP) and analytical (OLAP) workloads. Depending on the workload intensity, Oceanbase can either use separate replicas or handle both workloads on the same replica, ensuring real-time analytics without impacting transaction performance.

What role does the two-phase commit protocol play in Oceanbase?

Oceanbase uses the two-phase commit protocol to achieve atomic, distributed transactions across multiple partitions, ensuring data consistency and reliability in a distributed environment.

What is the significance of Oceanbase's use of a multi-tenant architecture?

The multi-tenant architecture in Oceanbase allows for resource isolation and database consolidation, significantly reducing hardware and maintenance costs while providing separate environments for different users or tenants within the same cluster.

How does Oceanbase ensure high availability and fault tolerance?

Oceanbase uses Paxos, a consensus protocol, to replicate data across multiple zones, achieving high availability and fault tolerance. In the event of a failure, Oceanbase can recover in less than 30 seconds with no data loss.

What are the main benchmarks that demonstrate Oceanbase's performance?

Oceanbase has achieved top results in various benchmarks, including the TPCC (Transaction Processing Performance Council) and TPC-H benchmarks. In 2020, it reached 707 million transactions per minute in the TPCC benchmark, and it ranked number one in 2021 for the TPC-H benchmark.