PlanetScale Extends Kubernetes Reach of Database Service
PlanetScale has made available a beta release of a managed database service for MySQL applications that can be deployed on any distribution of Kubernetes.
Company CEO Jiten Vaidya says the existing PlanetScale database-as-a-service platform is based on an instance of Kubernetes curated by PlanetScale.
PlanetScaleDB for Kubernetes extends the reach of the company’s services to include a managed database service that can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud using any distribution of Kubernetes any organization prefers, says Vaidya.
The PlanetScale database is based on the open source Vitess project, which, along with Kubernetes, is a graduated project maintained under the auspices of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). Vitess is a kdaey-value store database that is compatible with MySQL applications. It supports complex query semantics such as where clauses, JOINS and aggregation functions to process complex queries and transactions in a way that enables the underlying database to scale out across a distributed cluster environment.
Rather than having to learn how to deploy and manage both Vitess and Kubernetes, PlanetScale is making the case for a service that enables IT organizations to focus most of their efforts on application development and deployment.
As Kubernetes becomes more widely employed, however, Vaidya says PlanetScale is encountering more organizations that have standardized on one or more distributions of Kubernetes. Instead of forcing organizations to adopt another distribution of Kubernetes just to run Vitess, PlanetScale has decided to add a managed service that enables IT organizations to essentially bring their own Kubernetes distribution, he says.
That approach also gives IT organizations the option to deploy Vitess on-premises to meet compliance requirements versus also relying on a cloud service, Vaidya adds.
It’s not clear to what degree organizations will prefer to rely on managed services going forward. Historically, most IT teams have preferred to deploy and manage their own IT infrastructure. However, with the rise of the cloud, many more organizations are relying on managed services provided by either IT vendors themselves or third-party managed service providers (MSPs). One of the added benefits of PlanetScale is it subsumes the role of the database administrator, which in some cases will enable IT organizations to reduce the headcount required to support applications.
At the same time, more organizations are looking to build stateful applications using containers that require access to an underlying database. As one of the most widely used open source databases, many organizations already know how to build a MySQL application. The challenge they often face is MySQL databases don’t tend to scale easily. Vitess provides an alternative approach to employing a database that automatically manages shards of a database in a way that doesn’t require developers to master a dedicated NoSQL database to build applications that can scale.
One way or another, IT is becoming more automated. The only real issue going forward will be determining whether that automation will be driven by an IT team that is internal or external to the organization.
