Engineering

If you’ve ever struggled with slow queries or high resource consumption in your database, you’re not alone. Many databases, including those built on Multi-Version Concurrency Control (MVCC), face query performance degradation over time. While MVCC is essential for managing concurrent access, excessive historical data scanning can slow down queries and overload system resources — a […]

TiDB focuses on simplicity, transparency, and high availability, providing a robust foundation for distributed SQL workloads. While concerns about cross-shard queries and availability zone (AZ) outages are valid, TiDB’s architecture minimizes these risks, ensuring reliable and efficient application performance. However, when comparing TiDB and Vitess — an orchestrator for sharded MySQL instances — the architectural differences […]

Managing large-scale data efficiently is a critical challenge for modern databases, especially when dealing with time-sensitive data that can quickly become outdated. Starting from TiDB 6.5 and becoming generally available in TiDB 7.0, TTL (Time To Live) automates the deletion of expired data, offering a powerful, customizable solution for maintaining data freshness while minimizing operational […]

Managing schema changes in traditional databases often leads to downtime, blocking, and operational complexity. TiDB has long simplified this process with its online DDL capabilities, allowing developers to evolve their databases without disrupting applications. As user bases and data volumes have surged, however, index creation was increasingly becoming a performance bottleneck. To address this, we […]

Backup and restore are critical for ensuring business continuity, with the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) serving as a key metric for assessing restore performance. As TiDB continues to grow in popularity for its scalability, many users have datasets reaching hundreds of terabytes (TBs). That means the challenge of ensuring a fast RTO for such large […]

It’s that time of year again for a look back at the database industry. 2024 wasn’t so much about groundbreaking database technologies, but rather the explosive growth of AI-plus-data applications. That said, core database tech hasn’t remained idle either, as cloud infrastructure became the de facto standard for deployment.  So, without further adieu, here are […]

What if you could interact with your data just like you would with a colleague? No need for complicated SQL queries or advanced data analysis tools—just ask your data a question and get an immediate, clear answer. Sounds like magic, right? Well, it’s not. It’s TiDB’s Chat2Query, and it’s changing the game in how businesses […]

In today’s fast-paced business world, quick, data-driven decisions are crucial. However, for many, data analysis can seem daunting, especially without the technical skills to navigate complex databases. That’s where TiInsight shines: an intuitive and innovative platform built with the Chat2Query OpenAPI, designed to allow you to gain clear, actionable insights from complex data. An open-source […]

TiDB is a powerful, open-source distributed SQL database built for handling both transactional and analytical workloads. With its MySQL compatibility, horizontal scalability, and real-time HTAP capabilities, it’s designed for modern, cloud-native architectures. In this distributed SQL tutorial, we’ll walk you through setting up a local TiDB cluster for development and testing in just a few […]

Achieving a balance between scalability and operational efficiency has become a defining challenge for data-driven businesses. At HTAP Summit 2024, Alex Bai, Engineering Manager at Rakuten, and Tim Liu, Engineering Lead, shared their journey of overcoming the limitations of traditional databases like Apache Cassandra and MySQL to meet the demands of high-traffic platforms and critical […]

Welcome to the Distributed SQL Era: What AWS’s Entry Means for You Modern applications are pushing the boundaries of what databases can handle. As businesses expand, they face unprecedented demands—hyper-scaling applications, global deployments, and real-time responsiveness—that traditional databases simply weren’t designed to meet. Distributed SQL databases have emerged as a blueprint for success, but not […]

Business growth is an exciting milestone, bringing more users, transactions, and opportunities to innovate. However, with growth comes significant technical challenges, such as: In this blog, we’ll explore how TiDB, an open-source distributed SQL database, addresses these business growth challenges. We’ll also walk through real-world examples from companies such as Bolt and Flipkart. Bolt: A […]