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This topic has been translated from a Chinese forum by GPT and might contain errors.Original topic: PingCAP 与阿里云计算巢联合方案深度解析：数据库软件在云端部署的新形态
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username: Billmay表妹
Leaving complexity to ourselves and simplicity to users has always been Alibaba Cloud’s product philosophy. PingCAP’s founder and CEO, Liu Qi, once said: “PingCAP will continue to focus on one simple thing in the future, which is to return the database to its original form, leaving complexity to TiDB and simplicity to users.”
Engineers always hope to solve problems for users in the simplest and most elegant way. Recently, the collaboration between Alibaba Cloud Computing Nest and PingCAP has officially launched the cloud database TiDB on Alibaba Cloud, which is a solid step towards the vision of “simplifying complexity” for users. This article will delve into the joint solution of PingCAP and Alibaba Cloud Computing Nest, exploring new forms of software privatization deployment on the cloud.
TiDB cluster deployment architecture on Alibaba Cloud
PingCAP has grown from scratch to a leading open-source distributed database project led by Chinese people in just seven years. This year, PingCAP was selected for the 2022 Gartner Cloud Database “Voice of the Customer” and received the highest rating of “Excellent Performer,” being the only distributed cloud database service provider in China to be selected. In the Motianlun China Database Rankings, TiDB has ranked first for 28 consecutive months (January 2020 - April 2022).
Users expect cloud databases to fully utilize cloud-native capabilities: out-of-the-box, extreme elasticity, and managed operations, while also ensuring data security, high performance, and low latency. Currently, most enterprise users in China prefer privatized deployment models. However, as enterprises’ acceptance of public clouds increases, more and more enterprise users are turning to privatized deployment forms on the cloud.
Traditional large-scale privatized deployment methods face many challenges, such as complex cluster service deployment architectures, numerous components, difficulty in finding the optimal combination of cloud server specifications, errors and checks caused by manual operations, low deployment efficiency, and automatic scaling and elasticity guarantees for database clusters.
Returning to the initial mention of “simplifying complexity,” the joint solution of PingCAP and Alibaba Cloud Computing Nest aims to solve the “complexity” in the traditional database software usage process: one-click deployment of database clusters on the cloud; ensuring automatic scaling of database clusters through extreme elasticity capabilities on the cloud; providing security audits to enhance system operation and maintenance transparency; and optimizing resource billing to help users achieve better cost management.
One-click automated deployment on the cloud completes TiDB cluster creation in minutes
How can the complexity of cluster deployment be simplified? Alibaba Cloud Computing Nest’s answer is: achieve automatic deployment of database clusters through ROS (Resource Orchestration). ROS (Resource Orchestration) is Alibaba Cloud’s IaC (Infrastructure as Code) product. With the popularity of Terraform, IaC is no longer a new concept, but for many users, if deploying database software still requires learning how to use IaC, it definitely doesn’t qualify as “simplifying complexity.”
TiDB high-availability deployment template
Computing Nest not only supports ROS syntax, Terraform syntax scripts, and container deployment but also further achieves service-oriented implementation based on IaC. Users see a completely white-screen service creation page, without needing to learn what IaC is or perceive the existence of IaC scripts, greatly reducing the threshold for database deployment.
By integrating with the TiUP cluster operation and maintenance platform, after the cloud server cluster is created, the software deployment will also be automatically triggered and completed, taking only a few minutes for the entire process.
After accessing Alibaba Cloud Computing Nest, the privatized deployment process of TiDB clusters is greatly simplified, allowing users to achieve one-click deployment of database clusters and software on Computing Nest. To further optimize the experience, PingCAP combines its best practices and test results to recommend the most cost-effective cloud server specifications for different versions of TiDB clusters. Combined with Alibaba Cloud Linux’s special optimization for database scenarios, users can achieve higher performance.
PingCAP provides users with best practices for cloud server specifications
For the high-availability version across 3 AZs, Computing Nest will automatically filter out available zones with sufficient inventory for related specifications. When users select available zones, automatic verification of available zone options is implemented to avoid human errors and ensure strict dispersion of the three clusters across available zones, saving users the trouble of verifying inventory and selecting available zones.
Therefore, through Computing Nest deployment, users only need to configure business-related parameters such as the number of nodes, maximizing the simplification of the cluster deployment process. Under normal circumstances, TiDB will enter the deployment state after the user completes the configuration, and the deployment can be completed in just a few minutes. Compared to the traditional privatized deployment cycle measured in days or even weeks, this is a significant improvement.
Automated delivery can bring efficiency improvements of tens of times
Most software vendors pursue product standardization, and TiDB has already done a very good job in product standardization. Computing Nest further achieves service delivery standardization, with the initialization process of the cluster almost no longer requiring original factory participation, also minimizing human errors. From actual results, a 10-node TiDB cluster can be created and become available in just 5-10 minutes from the trigger.
A 10-node TiDB cluster creation took 7 minutes and 42 seconds
Since the installation of TiDB database software and Grafana monitoring software is fully integrated into the Computing Nest service, users can directly click the output IP address to access the TiDB database management backend and Grafana console after creation. For many enterprise users, the complexity of the cloud is completely shielded, and they only need to focus on the use of the software part.
TiDB and Grafana consoles
Extreme elasticity, supporting service node scaling
After completing the database cluster deployment, as business needs grow, there is often a need for database cluster expansion. When facing cluster scaling scenarios, it is usually difficult to easily obtain the global deployment situation of the cluster, which adds difficulty and complexity to global scaling. Therefore, scaling service nodes is particularly necessary.
Computing Nest naturally supports service node scaling, fully utilizing the elasticity capabilities on the cloud to ensure the scalability of database clusters. In this joint solution release, two scaling groups are naturally integrated: one for the TiDB cluster and the other for the TiKV cluster. When facing explosive data growth, users can choose specific scaling groups to adjust the number of instances. As shown in the figure below, after the user adjusts for expansion, the TiDB Dashboard shows successful scaling.
Security audit, providing a “dashcam” experience
A significant reason enterprise users choose privatized deployment is data security considerations. Therefore, for all maintenance operations by service providers, whether for resource clusters or within the Guest OS, Computing Nest provides comprehensive operation logs and screen recording records for users to conduct security audits, enhancing system operation and maintenance transparency. We call this feature a “dashcam,” allowing the entire process of service provider operations to be fully presented to users.
At the same time, Computing Nest and PingCAP ensure that the software components and deployment architecture are strictly security-reviewed before being listed and updated, and strictly control the open internal and external network ports to ensure secure use for users.
Service provider operation records on cloud servers
Comprehensive billing, clear and transparent resource consumption
In terms of cost transparency, Computing Nest has also made special experience optimizations. Before creating a cluster, users can see a complete cost estimate. After creating the cluster, users can directly see the resource cost information of the cluster through the billing analysis function, filtering out bills related to the current service, making resource consumption between different businesses clear and transparent, helping users manage costs and streamline financial processes.
Cost estimate before creation
Computing Nest billing query interface
Conclusion
As a cloud-integrated PaaS platform for ISVs, SIs, and MSPs (collectively referred to as service providers), Computing Nest facilitates service providers to better integrate their products and services with Alibaba Cloud, leveraging cloud-native capabilities to improve software service efficiency and user experience in delivery, deployment, and subsequent management. End users can manage various software services subscribed to on Alibaba Cloud through Computing Nest. Computing Nest provides a cloud-native service delivery platform and connector for service providers and end users, offering more efficient, convenient, and secure software services and usage experiences.
This joint solution with PingCAP is the result of Alibaba Cloud opening its cloud platform capabilities and deeply integrating with database software vendors. Through Computing Nest, Alibaba Cloud maximizes the opening of the underlying capabilities of the Feitian operating system to software vendors, solving various pain points encountered in software vendor business scenarios, and better integrating software with the cloud. It also provides fast access to Alibaba Cloud’s ecosystem and market channels, accelerating business growth for software vendors.
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