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by carterehsmith 3161 days ago
"CockroachDB maintains strong consistency across a globally-distributed cluster of computers."

No, CockroachDB does not maintain strong consistency across a globally-distributed cluster of computers. It is a "goal", but not the reality.

People reviewed these claims, and they do not hold (see e.g. Aphyr's review)
2 comments
andreimatei1 3161 days ago
Why do you say that they don't hold, exactly? We take our consistency guarantees, and correctness more generally, deadly serious. I think it's fair to say that we did quite well on Aphyr's review; he's found some quite obscure issues that were quickly fixed. More details here: https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/cockroachdb-beta-passes-j...
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carterehsmith 3160 days ago
"We take our consistency guarantees, and correctness more generally, deadly serious"

That is empty talk, ie advertising.

In a distributed database, as is the state of the art, you sacrifice one of: availability, consistency, performance.

This is true for every db, be it Spanner, or MongoDb.

Best to document what exactly was sacrificed. Just claiming that you "take it seriously" means nothing. BTW good luck :)

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manigandham 3150 days ago
Is that your own spin on the CAP theorem? Where does "performance" even come into the equation?

And CRDB is a CP system, just like Spanner.

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couchand 3161 days ago
I think your information is incomplete or out of date. Do you have a source other than the Jepsen blog? That seems to make clear that the two issues that were found in the tested beta release were quickly resolved. [0]

[0]: https://jepsen.io/analyses/cockroachdb-beta-20160829

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carterehsmith 3160 days ago
So you guys claim ""CockroachDB maintains strong consistency across a globally-distributed cluster of computers." "

Then some random dude walks in and finds that... the claims are false.

Oh, you fixed the bugs... great.

Here is the real question.

If you guys really know what you are doing, there would be no chance of someone... Aphyr or not, breaking your consistency guarantees.

In fact, you would be way ahead of Aphyr or whoever else can throw tests at you.

Just my 5c

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