The InfluxDB is a time series database from InfluxData headquartered in San Francisco. As an observability solution, it is designed to provide real-time visibility into stacks, sensors and systems. It is available open source, via the Cloud as a DBaaS option, or through an Enterprise subscription.
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MariaDB Platform
Score 9.9 out of 10
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MariaDB is an open-source relational database made by the original developers of MySQL, supported by the MariaDB Foundation and a community of developers. The community states recent additional capabilities as including clustering with Galera Cluster 4, compatibility with Oracle Database, and Temporal Data Tables, allowing one to query the data as it stood at any point in the past.
InfluxDB is a time series database and should be used in that intent. Each data ingestion streams should be properly configured to ensure optimal database performance. InfluxDB works very well but like any other databases requires maintenance and tuning. We have been using the TICK stack and are very happy with the results.
Our installation scenario is a MariaDB cluster composed of 3 nodes to achieve high availability in the service and in this way the application that accesses the backend (MariaDB) is always working and is not down at any time.
To achieve high performance of the application when accessing the database, a MariaDB MaxScale has been mounted that acts as a proxy for queries to the database.
MariaDB does well with PHP or Python (django) in a web environment. Developers are able to work quickly.
MariaDB is extremely well documented and has a gigantic support community. If you need ask a question on how to do things you can go to many placces online and find answers quickly.
MariaDB is fast! Queries with tens of thousands of rows are quick.
MariaDB is highly compatible with Oracle's MySQL. Basically the same thing but more open and with a brighter future.
With MariaDB it is so easy to import and export data, and backups are a cinch. This saves me so much time as compared to other RDBMS.
Small, but growing community - This database engine's community is much smaller than alternatives. This can make finding a DBA or support less easy, but not impossible.
Documentation could be improved - The docs for getting started don't effectively lead first-time users to understand how the underlying systems are designed.
Performance Analysis - There seems to be a lack of tools to give context to slow queries or other performance issues
Out-of-the-box security - The out of the box security is designed to operate in an internal network and is limited.
Driver Support - Some third party applications use database drivers that cause unexplained slowness with MariaDB. This can be worked around by using the MySQL drivers, but it's not clear what causes the problem in the first place.
Support - While online communities are helpful in diagnosing problems, there isn't as much professional documentation/support available for MariaDB as some of the other major database options.
Data Visualization - It would be helpful if there were more built in options for analyzing statistics and generating reports.
InfluxDB is a near perfect product for time series database engines. The relatively small list of cons are heavily outweighed by it's ability to just work and be a very flexible and powerful database engine. The community and support provided by the corporation are the only areas I have little experience.
MariaDB is very usable and stable to be used in production settings as an alternative to MySQL. The shortcomings of SQL are present but well understood in the community, and if the decision were to be made again, I would choose MariaDB over MySQL on future projects.
We have worked with the InfluxDB support team a few times so far and it has been positive. Issues submitted are worked on promptly and we have good feedback.
Yes, I would recommend MariaDB Platform support because they answer very fast and with detailed information. They also help you with the design of the storage infrastructure, not only with the maintenance problems. On the other hand, this service is a bit expensive.
We have looked around to find different options we had when we first started to move to cloud. At that time, the options we had is Google Cloud BigTable and InfluxDB. But quickly we realized that InfluxDB is the database specialized in time series database and performs better than other options we have.
It did not always compete against these technologies. Most of the time, it was complementing these databases for certain use cases to help provide a much more complete database. This makes more users want to use it to explore new solutions that help users. This is our target and how [we] work with MariaDb.
MariaDB has saved us enormously on licensing compared to our previous DB software vendor.
In service, it has enabled us (speaking as the internal DB team here) to provide better service to the other teams in the company as well as our customers, with less staff.
The level of hardware required for adequate performance, in our environment, has been much lower. Those savings have been substantial, above and beyond savings on licensing and DBA staffing levels.
