Pico

This landmark paper, presented at ODSI '12, has become one of Google's most significant contributions to distributed computing. It didn't solve the long-standing core problem of scalability of 2PC in distributed systems, rather, it introduced  TrueTime  that revolutionized system assumptions. Authored by J.C. Corbett , with contributions from pioneers like Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat , this paper effectively ended my exploration of distributed SQL databases. It represents the leading edge of the field. Paper Link I would highly recommend reading the following before jumping into this article: 1.  Practical Uses of Synchronized Clocks in Distributed Systems where I introduced why clock synchronization is necessary but not sufficient for external consistency. 2.  A New Presumed Commit Optimization for Two Phase Commit where I introduced two-phase commits (2PC) and how it is solved in a distributed system. 3.  Amazon Aurora: Design Considerations for High Th...

This article explores Amazon Aurora , a distributed SQL database that avoids two-phase commit (2PC) . While I initially intended to jump from a discussion of 2PC directly to Google Spanner, another globally distributed SQL database, I felt it was important to cover other notable distributed SQL designs. Published in 2017 and presented at SIGMOD by Alexandre Verbitsky et al., the Aurora paper presents a clever approach that enables distributed SQL without 2PC, a concept that may initially seem counterintuitive. Recommended Read : A New Presumed Commit Optimization for Two Phase Commit where I introduce SQL database concepts and provide an overview of how SQL databases work. Paper Link Let us start by revisiting some concepts. Cloud Native The term "cloud-native" gained prominence in the late 2000s as cloud computing adoption accelerated. (On a side-note, while cloud was initially hailed as the future, the rising costs are leading organizations to re-evaluate the role of on-...