MySQL storage engine TokuDB goes open source

Version 7 of TokuDB, Tokutek's high performance MySQL Database storage engine, has been released as an open source community edition and as a new supported TokuDB Enterprise Edition. TokuDB has previously been a proprietary storage engine for MySQL which has specialised in handling write-intensive workloads. Developed orignally by researchers at MIT, Rutgers and the State University of New York, the storage engine uses Fractal Tree indexing, a technique based on cache-oblivious algorithms.

Tokutek has interacted with the open source community, contributing bug fixes for MySQL and MariaDB, along with feature enhancements and source code for benchmarking tools. Now, the company is engaging with open source across a much wider front with the GPLv2 licensing of the TokuDB storage engine. Tokutek will offer products based around that with the aforementioned Enterprise Edition complemented by customer "onboarding" services, enhanced tools for backup and recovery of databases as well as driving forward development of the storage engine.

One existing user of TokuDB is Mozilla – it uses the storage engine as part of its Datazilla platform which aggregates incoming performance data from Firefox browser instances; the write-intensive nature of that makes TokuDB ideal for accumulating and then reporting on the incoming information. "We knew that we'd have large data sets and it was our storage engine of choice" said Sheeri Cabral, DBA at Mozilla, who added that "by going open source, Tokutek has made it much easier for TokuDB to be used across many more projects".

Tokutek's move to open source has been widely welcomed by the MySQL and MariaDB communities which brings it more in line with the typical business model of the ecosystem; open source software with enterprise editions and technical support services. Oracle's VP of MySQL Development, Tomas Ulin, noted that "much of the vitality of the MySQL ecosystem comes from its open source software dynamic, and it’s great to see new innovation in products like the TokuDB storage engine". MariaDB's Monty Widenius highlighted that it "will make it much easier for us to both integrate it deeper than ever before into MariaDB and to add it as a standard component".

The company's website was taken down, ironically with a database connection error, when the announcement was made due to the volume of interest, but when it returns, the source code for TokuDB should be available for download.

(djwm)