Samsung SDS (an IT services and solutions leader) and Joyent (the leader in next generation cloud computing) are excited to announce a 30-day free trial of Managed Service for ScyllaDB (Beta), a high performance NoSQL database on Triton, Joyent’s hybrid cloud.

What is ScyllaDB?

ScyllaDB is a highly scalable, open source, NoSQL DB that provides significantly higher performance and lower footprint compared to the market leading NoSQL database, Cassandra. ScyllaDB was designed with Cassandra compatibility in mind, so that it could easily replace Cassandra workloads with little or no source code changes.

ScyllaDB was developed by a startup company based in Israel in 2012. It’s currently funded by numerous companies (including Samsung) and is actively expanding their boundaries and features.

Why ScyllaDB?

ScyllaDB is 100% compatible with Cassandra and has been developed on top of the Seaster framework (C++ based server-side application platform) to implement data sharding on a per-core basis. This built-in multiprocessing gives the product noticeably higher performance vs. single-threaded databases.

Scylla is a sea monster from the Greek mythology. It is depicted as a creature with the upper body of a woman and the lower body of 6 fierce dogs as legs. As the 6 dogs simultaneously work together to do multiple jobs at the same time, ScyllaDB also uses parallel processing to improve performance.

Scylla can manage up to 2~4 times more data with the same resources compared to Cassandra. The maximum disk size per node which can be processed in ScyllaDB is also larger (10TB/node in ScyllaDB vs. 3TB/node in Cassandra), which in turn reduces the additional nodes needed for scaling.

SDS recently did a POC bake off between Cassandra and Scylla, and were successfully able to reduce our server footprint by 50%. For the same performance numbers, 50% fewer servers were needed on ScyllaDB.

Refer to the ScyllaDB website for the more detailed performance comparisons.

Why Samsung SDS for ScyllaDB?

Samsung SDS is a global IT services and solutions company that has led Korea’s IT industry for the past 30 years. Samsung SDS provides purpose-built technology solutions in the areas of enterprise mobility, security, and advanced analytics across various industries. In particular, Samsung SDS has over 20 years of experience in operating various DBMS systems for customers including Samsung Electronics. Through these experiences, Samsung SDS has accumulated knowledge and abilities in operating managed database services.

Samsung SDS has been involved in the ScyllaDB project as a contributor and has conducted numerous technical verifications and POCs leading up to the GA release of ScyllaDB. We also signed a global strategic partnership with ScyllaDB in September, 2016.

Why SDS managed ScyllaDB on Triton?

Hybrid, Modern, and Open, Joyent’s Triton is engineered to run the world’s largest cloud native applications. You can sign up for Triton Public Cloud, or download Triton Cloud software to bootstrap your own Triton Private Cloud. Also, we recently announced Triton Private Regions, a hybrid cloud designed to cut your current Public Cloud bill by 50% or more.

On Triton Public cloud with a managed service from Samsung SDS, we expect to give customers a 20% reduction in cost compared to AWS DynamoDB and Apache Cassandra. ScyllaDB on Triton has been proven to provide 2x better performance compared to Cassandra, and is highly stable in large clusters with over 100 ScyllaDB nodes.

Below are verified test results of ScyllaDB on Triton.

Test Environment

• Cloud Environment
  • JPC US-East
• IaaS Package
  • DB Node: k4-fastdisk-kvm-31.75G (4 core / 32GB Memory, 800G SSD)
  • Leader Node: k4-highcpu-kvm-7.75G (4 core / 7.75GB Memory, 200G HDD)
• Software
  • OS: CentOS 7.3, Docker 1.5
  • DB: Cassandra 3.9, ScyllaDB 1.4
  • Test Tool: Cassandra-Stress

As seen in the chart below ScyllaDB shows up to 2x better performance compared to Cassandra in a 3~12 Nodes environment.

The chart below displays the throughput consistency of ScyllaDB in a large cluster environment (100 nodes) over a 72 hour period with 60% CPU usage. TPS and latency are both stable during the whole test period.

Use Case: Sensor data management on manufacturing business

Managed ScyllaDB service on Triton

The following diagram describes the features that Samsung SDS’s managed service will provide to the customers.

The Managed Service for ScyllaDB on Joyent Triton is available immediately as a beta release. Pre-GA, we have decided to offer customers with a free 30-day trial service on Joyent Public Cloud.

The trial service does not include all of the GA planned service features; however key features are available for use.

• Key Features: (provided in the trial service)
  • Creating Clusters
  • Adding/Deleting Nodes
  • Monitoring cluster on the dashboard
  • Stopping/Starting Nodes
  • Managing Configurations
  • Viewing Data and Running Queries
• Advanced Features: (planned in the GA service)
  • Scheduling Backup
  • Setting up alert thresholds
  • Diagnose ScyllaDB
  • Managing Users based on role and policy
  • Metering

Note: ScyllaDB and Managed Trial Service will be provided for free, but the required KVM resources are only free until the $250 credits expire or are used up. A minimum of 5 nodes are required for the Trial service and the necessary instance specs are provided in the User Guide.

How can I get started?

Follow along as we walk through easy steps to get started in the User Guide. Complete them on your own, leveraging Triton’s free trial offer to get started, and in a few minutes, you will have your very own, production-grade, ScyllaDB cluster.

Or, just watch the video:

Support?

Samsung SDS has the following support model for the Managed ScyllaDB Service. This is complemented by the rich support) that Joyent provides for all Triton customers.

During the trial period, we are providing limited support. If you have any questions or problems while using our ScyllaDB Trial (Beta) service, please send us an email at dbtech_lab@samsung.com.

Fully managed service can be provided for customers who are already planning to go into production with ScyllaDB on Joyent’s Public, Private, or Hybrid Cloud (Private Region). Please contact us at sales@joyent.com to discuss more.