Speed, scale, and simplicity : Why Aerospike is a powerful real-time NoSQL database

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NoSQL databases are all the rage these days, but figuring out which one to use for a particular real-world scenario can be quite the challenge. My own introduction to NoSQL started with HBase and AWS DynamoDB, but I quickly realized there’s a whole world of options out there.

Enter Aerospike. When I first started tinkering with it and integrated it into a Spring Boot application as a caching mechanism, my mind was blown. Here was a database that could also function seamlessly as a cache—whoa!

But it was not until I did a deep dive into their documentation that I truly grasped the extent of Aerospike’s capabilities, including its “sub-millisecond latency” feature.

So, in this article, I am talking about Aerospike. I will cover everything from its fundamentals to its unique behavior, giving you a clear understanding of what makes Aerospike shine and why it is such a game-changer.

By the time you are done reading, you will be equipped with a newfound appreciation for another unsung hero in the realm of NoSQL databases.

Mini Disclaimer — You may find quite a few System design jargons being used like scalability, fault-tolerance, distributed systems, failover mechanisms, etc. So I would recommend reading this if you have a good foundation in these terms.

Ensure you don’t miss the surprise waiting for you at the end of this article — read on for an extra dose of excitement and a surprise announcement.

What will your key takeaways be?

Brief overview of NoSQL databases

Where does Aerospike fit in NOSQL?

Why should you choose Aerospike?

Why is it great as a cache?

CAP theorem vs Aerospike

Architecture deep-dive

Background on NoSQL databases

NoSQL databases, or “Not Only SQL” databases, are designed to handle large volumes of unstructured or semi-structured data and are often used in scenarios where traditional relational databases may struggle to perform efficiently or scale effectively.

These databases aimed to address challenges such as horizontal scalability, flexible data models, and distributed computing.

NoSQL databases are designed to scale horizontally across multiple nodes, allowing them to handle massive datasets and high throughput workloads.

NoSQL databases support a variety of data models, such as key-value stores, document stores, column-family stores, and graph databases.

NoSQL databases offer greater flexibility than relational databases in terms of schema design. They often support schema-less or schema-flexible data models, allowing developers to store and query data without predefined schemas.

What is Aerospike?

So what kind of NoSQL database is Aerospike?

It is a lightning fast key-value store.

It is actually also known as DBaas—DB as a service, as it is a real-time, cloud-based, distributed NoSQL database.

Aerospike is one of the most high-performance NoSQL databases that provides speed at scale. It is capable of the real-time transactional workloads that support mission-critical applications.

The unique combination of speed, scale, and reliability delivers up to 10x performance at 1/10th the cost compared to other databases at the time.

Aerospike’s patented Hybrid Memory Architecture™ delivers RAM-like performance with SSDs that scale from gigabytes to petabytes with sub-millisecond latency.

Its unique mix of speed, scalability, and reliability makes it stand out among other databases, making it a go-to choice for businesses that need to keep up with real-time demands in the digital world.

Why should I choose Aerospike?

Mainly for 3 reasons:

1. Lightning-fast performance. It can handle real-time transactions with incredibly low latency, making it perfect for applications that require quick responses.
2. With Aerospike, you can scale your database effortlessly from gigabytes to petabytes as your data needs grow. Its distributed architecture allows you to add more nodes to the cluster, ensuring seamless expansion without sacrificing performance.
3. Your application demands NoSQL flexibility while maintaining ACID guarantees for data consistency.

CAP theorem suitability

In a distributed computer system, you can only guarantee two out of three properties: Consistency, Availability, and Partition tolerance.

Here's how Aerospike fits within the context of the CAP theorem:

Aerospike provides strong consistency guarantees by default. This means that whenever a client reads from or writes to Aerospike, it receives the most recent data, and subsequent reads from any node in the cluster will return the same data.

Aerospike 4 introduces Strong Consistency. This algorithm carefully manages cluster splits and partitions to maintain availability while disallowing potentially conflicting writes in different sections of the cluster.

Designed for high availability. It employs replication and clustering mechanisms to ensure that data remains accessible even in the presence of node failures. Aerospike’s architecture allows it to distribute data across multiple nodes and automatically handle failover scenarios, minimizing downtime and maintaining system availability.

Aerospike is highly partition-tolerant. It is designed to operate effectively in distributed environments where network partitions may occur. Aerospike’s clustering and replication mechanisms enable it to continue functioning even if communication between nodes is temporarily disrupted. It ensures that data remains available and consistent across the cluster, even in the presence of network partitions.

Aerospike is a distributed database system that prioritizes both consistency and availability while maintaining strong partition tolerance.

While Aerospike ensures ACID properties, it does not inherently support multi-record isolation and consistency or query isolation for multi-record queries. These features fall outside of Aerospike’s scope.

Architecture overview:

Processing terabytes of data and billions of transactions per day, with predictable low latency and continuous availability is no easy feat.

There must be something special about Aerospike.

Let’s find out the secret.

1. Aerospike Smart Client: Aerospike employs a smart client that acts as the middleman between your applications and the database cluster. This smart client takes care of the nitty-gritty details, like selecting the right nodes, handling retries, and adjusting to changes in the cluster configuration. By doing so, it simplifies the development process for application developers, allowing them to focus on building their applications without worrying about database complexities.
2. Data Model Layer: Aerospike’s data model layer is designed for efficiency and flexibility. It allows you to store and retrieve data in a way that makes sense for your application, whether you are dealing with simple key-value pairs or more complex data structures. This flexibility ensures that Aerospike can handle a wide range of use cases, from caching and session management to real-time analytics and personalization.
3. Smart Clusters: Aerospike’s architecture is built around smart clusters, where each node operates independently. This shared-nothing architecture enhances scalability, making it easy to add new nodes to the cluster without disrupting operations. It also improves fault tolerance, as the failure of one node doesn’t bring down the entire cluster.
4. Hybrid Memory: Aerospike supports a hybrid storage model, combining in-memory and flash storage. Frequently accessed data is stored in RAM for lightning-fast access, while less frequently accessed data is stored on flash storage for cost-effectiveness and increased capacity. This hybrid approach ensures that Aerospike can deliver high performance and scalability without breaking the bank.

Additionally, Aerospike offers Cross-Datacenter Replication (XDR), allowing you to replicate data across multiple geographically distributed clusters for data consistency and disaster recovery.

With client libraries and SDKs available for various programming languages, including C, C#, Java, Node.js, Ruby, PHP, and Python, integrating Aerospike into your applications is a breeze. This wide range of language support ensures that developers can leverage Aerospike’s capabilities regardless of their preferred programming language.

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Why is it suited for a cache?

In order to talk about its suitability, we need to compare it with its counterparts in the industry i.e. Redis and Memcached.

Aerospike stands out with its hybrid memory architecture, combining the benefits of in-memory and on-disk storage for caching scenarios. It offers robust performance, durability, and consistency features, making it suitable for distributed caching applications.

Redis, while also a powerful caching solution, relies solely on RAM and offers persistence options but may be less storage-efficient for larger datasets.

Memcached, on the other hand, is lightweight and simple, operating purely in-memory without built-in persistence or transaction support, making it suitable for basic key-value caching but lacking the advanced features offered by Aerospike.

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