Spanner as a managed service

Summary

Spanner is a fully managed relational database service that offers horizontal scaling, strong consistency, and SQL compatibility. It’s ideal for industries like advertising, finance, and marketing technology, where high availability and rapid data processing are essential. Spanner uses synchronous replication to ensure consistent, ordered query responses, even when regions go offline. It powers Google’s $80 billion business, supporting applications that require high I/O operations, secondary indexes, and global availability. With built-in high availability and scalability, Spanner is perfect for mission-critical applications needing reliable, consistent data across regions.

Takeaways

• 😀 Spanner is a fully managed relational database service by Google that scales horizontally.
• 😀 Spanner offers strong consistency and speaks SQL, making it suitable for relational data management.
• 😀 Horizontal scaling involves adding or removing servers, while vertical scaling refers to adjusting the size of a single instance.
• 😀 Spanner is primarily used by industries such as advertising, finance, and marketing technology.
• 😀 The service helps manage end-user metadata for mission-critical applications.
• 😀 Spanner is tested and used by Google's own services, including those that power a business worth $80 billion.
• 😀 Key features of Spanner include high availability, global consistency, and the ability to handle high input/output operations per second.
• 😀 Applications that need tens of thousands of reads/writes per second benefit from Spanner’s capabilities.
• 😀 Spanner uses synchronous replication to automatically copy data across regions, ensuring consistency.
• 😀 If one region goes offline, Spanner can serve data from another region, providing continuous availability.

Q & A

What is Spanner?

Spanner is a fully managed relational database service that is horizontally scalable, strongly consistent, and SQL-based.

What is the difference between vertical and horizontal scaling?

Vertical scaling involves making a single instance of a service larger or smaller, while horizontal scaling involves adding or removing servers to adjust capacity.

Which industries commonly use Spanner?

Spanner is commonly used in the advertising, finance, and marketing technology industries, where managing end-user metadata is crucial.

How is Spanner tested?

Spanner is tested using Google’s own mission-critical applications and services, ensuring its reliability and performance.

How does Spanner support high availability?

Spanner supports high availability through replication within and across regions. If one region goes offline, user data is still accessible from another region.

What makes Spanner suitable for high-performance applications?

Spanner is designed for applications that require high numbers of I/O operations per second, such as tens of thousands of reads and writes per second, making it suitable for high-performance use cases.

What is synchronous replication in Spanner?

Synchronous replication in Spanner refers to the automatic and instant copying of data across regions, ensuring that queries return consistent and ordered answers regardless of region.

How does Spanner maintain global consistency?

Spanner maintains global consistency through its replication system, ensuring that data is always consistent across different regions.

What are the primary features of Spanner?

The primary features of Spanner include a SQL relational database system with joins and secondary indexes, built-in high availability, strong global consistency, and the ability to handle a high volume of read/write operations.

How does Spanner help in mission-critical applications?

Spanner powers Google's $80 billion business by providing reliable, high-performance database services for mission-critical applications, ensuring scalability and consistent availability.