Jun 19, 2015 · 23m · mad

Spencer Kimball, Cockroach Labs // A New Kind of Database (Hosted by FirstMark Capital)

Spencer Kimball · 20m spoken Matt Turck · 36s spoken

0:00 / 0:00

gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions

Spencer Kimball, co-founder of Cockroach Labs, presents CockroachDB at Data Driven NYC, detailing its evolution from historical database models, its resilient distributed architecture, open-source philosophy, and strategy to solve modern cloud database scaling challenges.

Chapters · click to jump

2 statements ▾

Kimball: Google expanded its MySQL AdWords backend to 1,000 shards before replacement open →

Kimball: Google ported 150 to 200 user-facing applications to Megastore by 2006 open →

1 statement ▾

Kimball: NoSQL databases lack sophistication for complex mobile app backends open →

2 statements ▾

Kimball: Solving strong consistency in application logic does not work open →

Kimball: Be suspicious of strong-consistency databases not using Paxos or Raft open →

2 statements ▾

Kimball in 2015: CockroachDB SQL support is aspirational and not started open →

Kimball: Retrofitting distributed transactions onto databases post hoc is very difficult open →

2 statements ▾

CockroachDB has open-source contributors from the US government and China open →

Kimball: Building a closed-source general OLTP database is a mistake open →

How this conversation actually went

Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Matt holds 2.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Matt as informed peer 0.6 Guest teaching 1.0 Guest disagreement 0.1 Matt pushing back 0.1

speaking balance: gold is Matt, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)

Sharpest disagreement ▶ 22:25 Reframing schema flexibility question

Spencer politely rejects the audience member's premise that CockroachDB eliminates NoSQL-style schema flexibility, clarifying their planned approach to dynamic implicit schemas.

Hardest push from Matt ▶ 19:38 Challenging the necessity of open source

Matt Turck asks whether proprietary tech companies are obsolete, probing Spencer on whether open source is strictly required for modern enterprise software success.

Biggest teaching moment ▶ 18:14 Educating on government and international adoption

Spencer reveals to host Matt Turck that US three-letter government agencies and large Chinese engineering teams are among their active early open-source code contributors.

Matt holds his own ▶ 19:38 Inquiring about proprietary vs open source models

Matt Turck demonstrates industry awareness by asking a targeted question regarding the viability of proprietary software business models in the open-source era.

the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each

Topic	Matt as informed peer	Guest teaching	Guest disagreement	Matt pushing back	Why
A Short History of Database Evolution	0	0	0	0	Spencer delivers a monologue presentation outlining database history from RDBMS to NoSQL and Google Spanner. The host does not participate in this presentation segment.
Identifying Database Shortcomings and Solution Architecture	0	0	0	0	Spencer details the flaws in existing database choices for scaling startups and introduces CockroachDB's open-source vision. The host is inactive during this presentation segment.
Core Pillars of CockroachDB: Scale, Survival, and Simplicity	0	0	0	0	Spencer presents the core principles of CockroachDB including multi-datacenter survival, strong consistency, and transactions. The host remains silent throughout the monologue.
Technical Deep Dive into CockroachDB Layered Architecture	0	0	0	0	Spencer provides a technical deep dive into the layered architecture from SQL down to RocksDB and Raft ranges. The segment is a pure technical monologue with zero host engagement.
Deployment Simplicity, Summary, and Final Presentation Wrap-Up	0	0	0	0	Spencer concludes his talk describing container deployment, gossip protocols, and the cockroach survivability metaphor. Host scores remain zero for this presentation conclusion.
Q&A - Early Adoption, Government Contributors, and Open Source Strategy	3	3	0	1	Matt Turck opens the Q&A asking about development progress and whether proprietary tech models are obsolete. Spencer responds collaboratively with surprising details about government and international contributors.
Q&A - Hosted Cloud Trade-offs and Flexible Schema Implementation	1	4	1	0	Audience members ask about cloud vendor lock-in and schema-on-read flexibility. Spencer gently clarifies a misunderstanding regarding dynamic schemas while the host merely moderates the mic.

Statements from this episode (9)

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Kimball: Google expanded its MySQL AdWords backend to 1,000 shards before replacement

“And I ran into this, like, really head first, like, into a brick wall when I got to Google in 2002, and they were using sharded MySQL in order to run their AdWords backend, and they went from, like, eight shards to 12 shards to 30 shards. By the time they repl…”

Spencer Kimball Jun 19, 2015 ▶ 1:53

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Kimball: Google ported 150 to 200 user-facing applications to Megastore by 2006

“By 2006, Google had moved away from it for building applications. By 2006, they published a paper called Megastore, and this system was something that a 150 to 200, I think applications that are externally facing Google were ported over to.”

Spencer Kimball Jun 19, 2015 ▶ 3:12

Opinion

Kimball: NoSQL databases lack sophistication for complex mobile app backends

“The problem is that, you know, in this day and age, mobile apps are getting increasingly complex, and when you have a complex mobile app, that translates to complex operations that are run in the cloud on the backend servers, and those the problem is that thes…”

Spencer Kimball Jun 19, 2015 ▶ 5:17

Insight

Kimball: Solving strong consistency in application logic does not work

“It's actually an incredibly hard problem. It's incredibly hard to solve it above the database layer, which some people purport to do. You know, they're putting all these kind of checks in. Oh, well, you know, was I at this data center before? Am I at this data…”

Spencer Kimball Jun 19, 2015 ▶ 9:29

Insight

Kimball: Be suspicious of strong-consistency databases not using Paxos or Raft

“So I'd be very suspicious if you see a database that claims to do this that doesn't use something like Paxos, Which is really the gold standard, and Raft, which just came out in in 2014 which is kind of a reimagined and simpler version of Paxos.”

Spencer Kimball Jun 19, 2015 ▶ 9:50

Disclosure

Kimball in 2015: CockroachDB SQL support is aspirational and not started

“The top, the very top, SQL, is aspirational. We do intend to do it but we haven't started working on it yet.”

Spencer Kimball Jun 19, 2015 ▶ 11:45

Insight

Kimball: Retrofitting distributed transactions onto databases post hoc is very difficult

“You see a lot of the sort of distributed databases that currently exist attempting to sort of retrofit their database with distributed transactions. It's very difficult to do that post hoc.”

Spencer Kimball Jun 19, 2015 ▶ 13:12

Assertion Not checkable as stated

CockroachDB has open-source contributors from the US government and China

“We actually have you know open source contributors, like a whole team of 10 people from China, for example, And, ah, you know, some people from the US government because, ah, you know, they're so interested in it.”

Spencer Kimball Jun 19, 2015 ▶ 19:15

Insight

Kimball: Building a closed-source general OLTP database is a mistake

“I think that it would be a mistake for us or for anyone like us to build something that's closed source in terms of a general OLTP database system.”

Spencer Kimball Jun 19, 2015 ▶ 20:15

Spencer Kimball, Cockroach Labs // A New Kind of Database (Hosted by FirstMark Capital)

How this conversation actually went

Statements from this episode (9)

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