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ArangoDB 3.2: Enhanced GraphQL Sync
Just in time for the upcoming 3.2.0 release, we have updated the graphql-sync module for compatibility with graphql-js versions 0.7.2, 0.8.2, 0.9.6 and 0.10.1. The graphql-sync module allows developers to implement GraphQL backends and schemas in strictly synchronous JavaScript environments like the ArangoDB Foxx framework by providing a thin wrapper around the official GraphQL implementation for JavaScript.
As a long-term database solution, ArangoDB is committed to API stability and avoids upgrades to third-party dependencies that would result in breaking changes. This means ArangoDB will continue to bundle the graphql-js 0.6.2 compatibility version of graphql-sync.
Database Security Reminder: Protect Your Data
With billions of objects and people connected to the internet and your precious data sometimes exposed publicly security is one of the most important topics to discuss. In light of recent ransomware attacks, databases exposed and other breaches we’d like to share a quick reminder on how to secure your ArangoDB environment.
Attacks can be prevented with the security protections built into the product. We strive to prevent possible security issues by giving appropriate reminders in our web console when authentication is disabled:
ArangoDB 3.2 Beta: RocksDB Storage Engine & Distributed Graph Cluster
We’re excited to release today the beta of ArangoDB 3.2. It’s feature rich, well tested and hopefully plenty of fun for all of you. Keen to take it for a spin? Get ArangoDB 3.2 beta here.
With ArangoDB 3.2, we’re introducing the long-awaited pluggable storage engine and its first new citizen, RocksDB from Facebook
- RocksDB: You can now use as much data in ArangoDB as you can fit on your disk. Plus, you can enjoy performance boosts on writes by having only document-level locks (more info below).
- Pregel: Furthermore, we implemented distributed graph processing with Pregel for discovering hidden patterns, identify communities and perform in-depth analytics of large graph data sets.
- ClusterFoxx: Another important upgrade is what we internally and playfully call the ClusterFoxx. The Foxx management internals have been rewritten from the ground up to make sure multi-coordinator cluster setups always keep their services in sync and new coordinators are fully initialised even when all existing coordinators are unavailable.
- Enterprise: Working with some of our largest customers, we’ve added further security and scalability features to ArangoDB Enterprise like LDAP integration, Encryption at Rest, and the brand new Satellite Collections.
The goal of the whole ArangoDB 3 release cycle has been to scale the multi-model idea to new heights. Getting ‘ready’ for large scale applications is not done overnight and it’s definitely not possible without the help of a strong community. We’d like to invite all of you to lend us a helping hand to make ArangoDB 3.2 the best release ever. Please push this beta to its limits: test it for your use cases and compare the performance of the new features like RocksDB. Let us know on Github any bug that you find. Don’t worry about hurting our feelings: we want to fix any problems.
Join the Beta Bug Hunt Challenge and win a $200 Amazon Gift Card as first prize. You can find more details about this reward program at the end of this post.
New Storage Engine RocksDB
ArangoDB now comes with two storage engines: mmfiles and RocksDB. If you want to compare the engines, you can use arangodump to export data from either engine and arangorestore to import into the other. MMFILES are generally well suited for use-cases that fit into main memory, while RocksDB allows larger than memory work-sets.
RocksDB has plenty of configuration options; we have selected the general purpose options. Please let us know how it works for your use case so that we can further optimize the implementation. Also notice that we do many tests under Linux, Windows and macOS. However, we optimize for Linux. Any feedback regarding other operating systems is very welcome. Check out the step by step guide to compare both storage engines for your use case and OS!
Benefits of RocksDB Storage Engine:
- Document-level locks: performance boost for write intensive applications. Writes don’t block reads, and reads don’t block writes
- Support for large datasets: go beyond the limit of main memory and stay performant
- Persistent indexes: faster index build after restart
Things to consider before switching to RocksDB
- RocksDB allows concurrent writes: Write conflicts can be raised. Applications switching from MMFiles must be prepared for exceptions
- Transaction Limit in RocksDB: The total size of transactions is limited in RocksDB. Modifying statements on large amounts of documents have to commit in between -- with AQL this is done by default.
- Engine Selection on Server/Cluster Level: It’s not possible to mix both storage engines within a single instance or cluster installation. Transaction handling and write ahead log formats are different.
Find all important details about RocksDB in the storage engine documentation, as well as answers to common questions about our RocksDB integration in the FAQ.
Please note that ArangoDB 3.2 beta is fully tested, but not yet fully optimized (known-issues RocksDB). If you find something that is much slower with RocksDB compared to your current queries with the MMFiles engine, please create a github ticket. Please check the comparison guide here.
New Distributed Graph Processing
With the new implementation of distributed graph processing, you are now able to analyze even very large graph data sets as a whole. Internally, we implemented the pregel computing model to enable ArangoDB to support arbitrary graph algorithms, which will scale with your data -- or with the size of your database cluster.
You can already use a number of well-known graph algorithms:
- PageRank
- Weakly Connected Components
- Strongly Connected Components
- HITS (hubs and authorities)
- Single-Source Shortest Path
- Community Detection via Label Propagation
- Vertex Centrality measures
- Closeness Centrality via Effective Closeness
- Betweenness Centrality via LineRank
By using these new capabilities, you are now able, for example, to detect communities within your graph, shard your data according to these communities and leverage ArangoDB SmartGraphs to perform highly efficient graph traversals even in a cluster setup.
New ClusterFoxx
Managing your JavaScript microservices is now easier and more reliable than ever before. The Foxx management internals have been rewritten to make sure multi-coordinator cluster setups always keep their services in sync and new coordinators are fully initialised even when all existing coordinators are unavailable.
Additionally, the new fully documented REST API for managing Foxx services enables you to install, upgrade and configure your services using your existing devops processes. And if your service only consists of a single JavaScript file, you can now forego the manifest and upload that file directly, instead of creating a full bundle.
Further useful new features included in ArangoDB 3.2 beta
- geo_cursor: Get documents sorted by distance to a certain point in space. You can also apply filters and limits to geo_cursor.
- arangoexport: Export data as JSON, JSONL and even graphs as XGMML for visualisation in Cytoscape. You can find details in the Alpha2 release post.
Download ArangoDB 3.2 beta Community
New Enterprise Edition Features in 3.2
The Enterprise Edition of ArangoDB is focused to solve enterprise-scale problems and meet high security standards. In version 3.1, we introduced SmartGraphs to bring fast traversal times to sharded graph datasets. With SatelliteCollections, we enable the same performance boost to join operations at scale.
SatelliteCollections
From genome-sequencing projects to massive online games and beyond, we see the need for join operations including sharded collections and sub-second response times.
With SatelliteCollections, you can define collections to shard to a cluster and collections to replicate to each machine. The ArangoDB query optimizer knows where each shard is located and sends the requests to the DBServers involved, which then executes the query, locally. With this approach, network hops during join operations on sharded collections can be avoided and response times can be close to that of a single instance.
In the example below, collection C is large and sharded to multiple machines while the smaller satellites (S1-S5) are replicated to each machine.
We are super excited to see what you will create with this new feature and welcome any feedback you can provide. The Enterprise Edition of ArangoDB is forever free for evaluation. So feel free to take it for a spin.
Encryption at Rest
With RocksDB, you can encrypt the data stored on disk using a highly secure AES algorithm. With this upgrade, ArangoDB takes another big step towards HIPPA compliance. Even if someone steals one of your discs, they won’t be able to access the data.
Enhanced Authorisation with LDAP
Normally, users are defined and managed in ArangoDB itself. With LDAP, you can use an external server to manage your users. We have implemented a common schema which can be extended. If you have special requirements that do not fit into this schema, please let us know (#feedback32 channel). A general note: The final release will also support read-only users. With this beta, only read/write users are supported.
Download ArangoDB 3.2 beta Enterprise
Bug Hunt Competition
We’d love to invite all of you to try ArangoDB 3.2 beta and report all bugs you can find -- we’re hoping there won’t be any, but there always are some. Everyone reporting bugs for 3.2 beta on Github will take part in the Beta Bug Hunt Competition. All Github issues count for version 3.2 beta which are marked with bug by the ArangoDB team. The hunter with the most reported bugs wins. The first three runner-ups will receive an honorable mention in the Bug Hunt Challenge post.
How the Bug Hunt Competition works:
- Duration: from June 13th until June 27th
- Bugs: Any Github issue for 3.2 beta release which is marked as bug by ArangoDB team
- Who can participate: everyone
- First Prize: a $200 Amazon Gift Card + ArangoDB Swag Package
- Second Prize: $100 Amazon Gift Card + ArangoDB Swag Package
- Runner-Up: ArangoDB Swag Package
All winners will receive an honorable mention in the bug hunt post and tweets after the challenge. Please note that our team has to be able to reproduce the bug.
Therefore good bug reports
- Have only necessary infos included
- Provide a step by step description to reproduce the bug
- Provide demo data via e.g. gist (if necessary)
We hope you will enjoy this new release - “Gute Jagd!”
Legal
In connection with your participation in this program you agree to comply with all applicable local and national laws. You must not disrupt or compromise any data that is not your own.
ArangoDB reserves the right to discontinue this program or change or modify its terms at any time. The ultimate decision over an award -- whether to give one and in what amount -- is entirely at ArangoDB’s discretion.
You are exclusively responsible for paying any taxes on any reward you receive.
Vulnerabilities obtained by exploiting ArangoDB users or instances on the Internet are not eligible for an award and will result in immediate disqualification from the program.
ArangoDB Hires Seasoned Software Executives to Run Americas
Michael Guerra, former MariaDB, Basho and VMWare leader and Ramona Rolando from Oracle join to foster US growth
ArangoDB, the company behind the leading native multi-model database, winner of 2017 Red Herring Top 100 Europe, today announced that Michael Louis Guerra has formally joined as Head of Sales Americas. Mike’s responsibilities will include building a high-performance sales team and a network of partners across the region.
Mike has over 20 years of experience at public, private, as well as venture-backed startups with a particular focus on open source technologies. He’s an accomplished software sales executive with strong leadership, team building, and business development skills. Most recently, Mike was responsible for growing the Western Territory at MariaDB and Basho Technologies. He helped several companies over two decades leading to acquisitions from Morgan Stanley, Yahoo, and VMware.
Ramona Rolando, a seasoned Sales Leader from Oracle and Honeywell, also joins the team to run Inside Sales in the region. Read more
RocksDB Integration in ArangoDB: FAQs
The new release of ArangoDB 3.2 is just around the corner and will include some major improvements like distributed graph processing with Pregel or a powerful export tool. But most importantly we integrated Facebook’s RocksDB as the first pluggable storage engine in ArangoDB. With RocksDB you will be able to use as much data in ArangoDB as fits on your disc.
As this is an important change and many questions reached us from the community we wanted to share some answers on the most common questions. Please find them below
Will I be able to go beyond the limit of RAM?
Yes. By defining RocksDB as your storage engine you will be able to work with as much data as fits on your disc.
What is the locking behaviour with RocksDB in ArangoDB?
ArangoDB wins Red Herring Top 100 Award
Jury selected ArangoDB out of 1.200 promising companies in Europe and confirms growing importance of native multi-model databases.
ArangoDB, the native multi-model database, announced today it was selected as a winner for
Red Herring Top 100 award for the European business region.
Red Herring Top 100 Europe enlists outstanding entrepreneurs and promising companies. Winners are selected from approximately 1,200 privately financed companies each year in the European Region. Since 1996, Red Herring has kept tabs on these up-and-comers. Red Herring’s editors were among the first to recognize that companies such as Alibaba, Facebook, Google, Kakao, Skype, SuperCell, Spotify, Twitter, and YouTube would change the way we live and work.
“It was exciting to see so many great ideas and teams from across Europe gathering in Amsterdam for Red Herring Award 2017,” said ArangoDB CEO Claudius Weinberger. “Developers, architects and CIOs around the globe have many options when it comes to databases. With ArangoDB they have a solid high performance technology for multiple purposes to simplify their tech stack. We are pleased that our vision got recognized by such a prestigious award. Now it’s about exceeding the rising expectations.”
Red Herring’s jury evaluated companies on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technological innovation and intellectual property, DNA of the founders, business model, customer footprint and addressable market. A review of the track record and standing of startups relative to their sector peers, allowing Red Herring to see past the “buzz” and making the list a valuable instrument of discovery and advocacy for the most promising new business models in Europe, complement this assessment of potential.
ArangoDB was chosen for its innovative and highly flexible multi model approach and for its massive growth on the business and community side over the past year. “In 2017, selecting the top achievers was by no means a small feat,” said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. “In fact, we had the toughest time in years because so many entrepreneurs had crossed significant milestones so early in the European tech ecosystem. We believe ArangoDB embodies the vision, drive and innovation that define a successful entrepreneurial venture. ArangoDB should be proud of its accomplishment, as the competition was very strong.”
ArangoDB Promotes Luca Olivari to President
Company creates new role to accelerate global expansion
ArangoDB, the company behind the leading native multi-model database, today announced that Luca Olivari has formally joined as President. Luca will work with the founders, board of directors and advisory council to accelerate global expansion.
“It has been a privilege to work with the founders and the rest of the team for a few months as an Advisor and witness first hand how ArangoDB helps enterprise customers to unwind complexity and improve developer productivity,” said Olivari. “As President, I will be focused on building our global customer facing functions, a productive ecosystem and a committed community.” Read more
Webinar: The native multi-model approach and its benefits for developers, architects and DevOps
Tuesday, May 16th (6PM CEST/12PM ET/ 9AM PT) – Join the webinar here.
This webinar gives a general overview of the multi-model database movement, in particular we will discuss its main advantages and technological benefits from an architect and devops perspective.
Since the first relational databases were invented the needs of companies and the technological possibilities have changed completely. Luca Olivari (recently announced President of ArangoDB) will deep dive into current trends in the database world, how native multi-model databases help companies of all sizes, and walk you through use cases where ArangoDB is beneficial. He will share decades of experience in the field and views on ever-changing needs of developers, companies and customers in the modern times. Read more
ArangoDB Selected as Finalist for Red Herring Top 100 in Europe
“ArangoDB shows great promise and therefore deserves to be among the finalists.”
ArangoDB, the native multi-model database, announced today that it has been selected as a finalist for
Red Herring Top 100 award for the European business region. The nomination underlines the great success of the company and the growing momentum behind the multi-model movement it is heralding.
“The whole team is proud to be nominated for such a prestigious award,” says Claudius Weinberger, CEO of ArangoDB. “Looking back a few years, it was hard work to win people for our multi-model approach and unique query language. Today startups and enterprises enjoy the flexibility our database provides and use it to realize their brightest ideas.” Read more