Introducing Drizzle – a lightweight SQL database for cloud and web

Drizzle is a lightweight SQL database for cloud and web, it’s community-driven open source project that is forked from the popular MySQL database.

SoftElegance is attended in Drizzle project. At the moment we investigate the possibilities to participate at the project. Considering SoftElegance’s core technology is .NET Framework we could brig some new experience into the project.

drizzle logo

Drizzle is an offshoot of MySQL for cloud computing and Web application duties: They stripped away features not needed for these tasks, reorganized the codebase into a microkernel architecture and rewrote the code using C++, all in the hopes of speeding the performance of the database system.

Special thanks to Rackspace for highlighting the best of the best differences:

  1. Micro-Kernel Design, with modular interfaces to plug in features and functions without touching the core code. API’s for Replication, Storage Engines, Logging, Authentication, Client Protocols, etc.
  2. No triggers or stored procedures. That stuff is bloat as done in MySQL, and Drizzle has other ways to deal with these needs. These capabilities can be added in later as needed such that they are done right.
  3. Only UTF8 support, not a multitude of language encodings and collations. Keep it simple. This is the web.
  4. Way Less Source Code, where MySQL has well over a million lines of code, Drizzle is just under 300K lines.
  5. Drizzle Client Protocol, that’s pluggable and Asynchronous capable with built-in sharding support and built-in checksum support and BSD licence so you can package it in commercial software with no license drama.
  6. Default Storage Engine is InnoDB, for ACID compliance but others can still be used. MyISAM is gone. Long live the Queen!
  7. Pluggable AAA, so integrating with your LDAP user database through PAM is simple as pie, if if you don’t want any auth (think memcached) just don’t load the plugin, and get a nice performance boost.
  8. Replication will be everything you ever wanted in a replication system. You hate MySQL replication? You now love Drizzle.
  9. Logging is pluggable so you can log to Syslog, a query analyzer, Gearman, or whatever you want to plug in.
  10. Query Rewriting is supported. If you have a misbehaving application, you can fix it at the database if desired.
  11. The Data Dictionary is redone so that no internal tables materialize, and there is only a single code execution path. This means all your base run faster.
  12. FRM Files are Gone. Yep, ever been snagged by the contents of an FRM file not matching what’s in the database? Cry no more.
  13. The MySQL Client Protocol is supported so you can use Drizzle with most applications without modification.
  14. It’s Easy to Build from Source. Ever tried to compile MySQL from source. Hah! Yeah, drizzle builds like butter.

We will keep you updated with the latest SoftElegance’s experience with Drizzle.

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