[devj]

Thanks for your reply. Would be really helpful if you can share the following:

1. Size of the CloudKit cluster and the number of RecordLayer instances. A ratio would also be enough to get an approx. idea.

2. How metadata changes involving field data type are being handled?

3. How are relationships and therefore, foreign keys handled? Are any referential actions like cascading deletes supported?

[all0c]

The Record Layer doesn't currently support foreign key constraints, so foreign keys are more of an “design pattern” than a first-class feature. For example, in a sample schema in the repository, an “Order” message has have a field called “item_id” that points to the primary key of an “Item” message: https://github.com/FoundationDB/fdb-record-layer/blob/792c95... There isn't an automatic check to make sure the item exists, though, nor are there cascading deletes. That being said, I don't think the architecture is incompatible with that feature, so it would be a reasonable feature request.

There are some guidelines regarding field type changes in the schema evolution guide: https://foundationdb.github.io/fdb-record-layer/SchemaEvolut... Most data type changes are incompatible with either Protobuf's serialization format or the FDB Tuple layer's serialization format (which the Record Layer users for storing secondary indexes and primary keys). The general advice for type changes (if there are existing data in your record stores) would instead be to introduce a new field of the new type and deprecate the old one.