I think this is a great question. Explaining what Ignite does is always a challenge, so having a useful “tag line” would be very valuable.
I’m not sure what the answer is but I think calling it a “database” devalues all the compute facilities. "Computing platform” may be too vague but it at least says that we do more than “just” store data. > On 17 Sep 2020, at 06:29, Valentin Kulichenko <valentin.kuliche...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > 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 > <mailto: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
