Rethinking database architecture: From monolithic storage to Lakebase and LTAP
By
Reynold Xin
Summary
The article discusses the evolution of database architecture, starting from the author's PhD experience at UC Berkeley where OLTP databases were considered a solved problem. It traces the journey from traditional monolithic databases through Databricks' development, leading to the concept of Lakebase (which externalizes Postgres log and data files into independent cloud services) and LTAP (which stores operational data once in open columnar formats readable by both Postgres and Lakehouse engines). The piece argues that traditional databases have fundamental flaws in their storage architecture, and proposes a rethinking of databases from the storage layer up to enable elastic compute, durable writes, and unified analytics without data duplication.
Source
bskyRethinking database architecture: From monolithic storage to Lakebase and LTAPdatabricks.comKey quotes
· 3 pulledOLTP databases are a solved problem. They work. Focus on analytics.
OLTP databases were far from a solved problem: they were clunky, difficult to scale, and in...
Almost every traditional database keeps its write-ahead log and data files on one machine's disk, which is the root cause of data loss risk, expensive read replicas and high-availability clones, and analytics queries that drag down transactions.
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