My vote is for the "distributed memory-first database". It clearly states
that Ignite is a database (which is true at this point), while still
emphasizing the in-memory computing power endorsed by the platform.
The "in-memory computing platform" is an ambiguous term and doesn't really
reflect what Ignite is, especially in its current state.
-Val
On Wed, Sep 16, 2020 at 3:53 PM Denis Magda <dma...@apache.org> wrote:
Igniters,
Throughout the history of our project, we could see how the addition of
certain features required us to reassess the project's name and category.
Before Ignite joined the ASF, it supported only compute APIs resembling
the
MapReduce engine of Hadoop. Those days, it was fair to define Ignite as
"a
distributed in-memory computing engine". Next, at the time of the project
donation, it already included key-value/SQL/transactional APIs, was used
as
a distributed cache, and significantly outgrew the "in-memory computing
engine" use case. That's how the project transitioned to the product
category of in-memory caches and we started to name it as an "in-memory
data grid" or "in-memory computing platform" to differentiate from
classical caching products such as Memcached and Redis.
Nowadays, the project outgrew its caching use case, and the
classification
of Ignite as an "in-memory data grid" or "in-memory computing platform"
doesn't sound accurate. We rebuilt our storage engine by replacing a
typical key-value engine with a B-tree engine that spans across memory
and
disk tiers. And it's not surprising to see more deployments of Ignite as
a
database on its own. So, it feels like we need to reconsider Ignite
positioning again so that a) application developers can discover it
easily
via search engines and b) the project can stand out from in-memory
projects
with intersecting capabilities.
To the point, I'm suggesting to reposition Ignite in one of the following
ways:
1. Ignite is a "distributed X database". We are indeed a distributed
partitioned database where X can be "multi-tiered" or "memory-first"
to
emphasize that we are more than an in-memory database.
2. Keep defining Ignite as "an in-memory computing platform" but name
our storage engine uniquely as "IgniteDB" to highlight that the
platform is
powered by a "distributed multi-tiered/memory-first database".
What is your thinking?
(Also, regardless of a selected name, Ignite still will be used as a
cache
and grid, and we're not going to stop appealing to those use cases. But
those are just use cases while Ignite has to figure out its new identity
... again).
-
Denis
