Yugabyte has introduced substantial architectural advancements to its flagship database, YugabyteDB, enhancing its capabilities to transform PostgreSQL into a distributed database tailored for contemporary applications. This suite of features, termed enhanced Postgres compatibility, broadens the spectrum of Postgres applications that can operate on YugabyteDB, positioning it as an ideal solution for organizations developing cloud-native applications or modernizing existing systems into a cloud-native RDBMS.
PostgreSQL’s Popularity and Challenges
PostgreSQL continues to be recognized as the most popular database among developers, attributed to its robust feature set, extensive extensions, vibrant open-source community, and compatibility with numerous programming languages. Nonetheless, its limitations in resilience and scalability pose challenges for enterprise-level and mission-critical applications, particularly for those requiring uninterrupted operation during outages, rapid scaling to meet demand, or data management across multiple regions.
YugabyteDB addresses these concerns by maintaining the familiar PostgreSQL experience while integrating an enterprise-grade distributed architecture. By leveraging the PostgreSQL query engine, YugabyteDB ensures runtime compatibility, allowing features such as transactional semantics, retry logic, error codes, system catalog, information schemas, and change data capture to function identically to their Postgres counterparts. Additionally, users can take advantage of Yugabyte’s open-source migration tool to facilitate the transition from PostgreSQL and legacy databases to YugabyteDB.
Innovative Features of YugabyteDB
The latest iteration of YugabyteDB transcends mere functional compatibility, delivering on Yugabyte’s promise to facilitate lift-and-shift modernization of Postgres applications with minimal adjustments. The announcement highlights two pivotal innovations:
- Adaptive Cost-Based Optimizer: This enhancement extends PostgreSQL’s built-in cost-based optimizer (CBO) to accommodate high-scale and multi-region applications. The Adaptive CBO identifies the optimal query plan by considering data co-location, automatic sharding, and distribution across zones or regions. It also incorporates essential Postgres features such as extended table statistics, parallel plans, and bitmap scans.
- Smart Data Distribution: Traditional distributed SQL databases often face a trade-off between scalability and application performance. YugabyteDB resolves this dilemma by intelligently determining whether to colocate tables for lower latency or shard and distribute them for extensive scalability.
To demonstrate the ease of migrating from PostgreSQL to YugabyteDB, the company has launched the App Century Challenge. This initiative invites members of the YugabyteDB Open Source Community to assist in migrating 100 popular open-source Postgres applications to YugabyteDB. Participants will receive exclusive merchandise and the opportunity to engage in a project that tests the capabilities of YugabyteDB’s Postgres compatibility.
Karthik Ranganathan, co-founder and co-CEO of Yugabyte, expressed enthusiasm about this milestone, stating, “We’re thrilled to share this significant milestone on our journey to make YugabyteDB a truly distributed PostgreSQL database for modern applications at any scale. The latest version continues to push the boundaries of performance, scalability, and simplicity for enterprises embracing cloud-native architectures while harnessing the power of the world’s most popular database. With these enhanced features and improved compatibility, YugabyteDB further empowers developers and enterprises in their digital transformation journeys.”
Key Results
- Over 92% of PostgreSQL query patterns now perform comparably on YugabyteDB, a significant increase from 47% two years ago. This advancement allows developers to transition their Postgres applications to YugabyteDB while maintaining performance and scalability.
- YugabyteDB’s Adaptive CBO achieves optimal query plans in 93% of TAQO Framework tests, closely matching the 97% success rate of Postgres. The TAQO Framework serves as a query optimizer testing framework for Postgres compatible databases, developed through research at the University of California at Davis.
- With Smart Data Distribution, YugabyteDB can now support over 50,000 database objects—tables, indexes, sequences, and more—compared to a mere 2,000 without this feature, resulting in significantly enhanced scalability.
Experts from Yugabyte will showcase the latest features of YugabyteDB and discuss their vision for the future of distributed databases at the upcoming Distributed SQL Summit (DSS) on November 12. For further details and registration for this virtual event, please visit: https://events.ringcentral.com/events/distributed-sql-summit-2024.
For a comprehensive overview of YugabyteDB’s new features, please visit www.yugabyte.com/latest-release/.
About Yugabyte
Yugabyte is the driving force behind YugabyteDB, an open-source, high-performance distributed SQL database designed for constructing global, cloud-native applications. YugabyteDB caters to business-critical applications with SQL query flexibility, high performance, and cloud-native agility, enabling enterprises to concentrate on growth rather than intricate data infrastructure management. Trusted by organizations across various sectors, including cybersecurity, financial markets, IoT, retail, and e-commerce, Yugabyte was founded in 2016 by former engineers from Facebook and Oracle and is supported by notable investors such as Lightspeed Venture Partners, 8VC, Dell Technologies Capital, and Sapphire Ventures. For more information, visit www.yugabyte.com.