IT Voice -How does TiDB address scalability and consistency for distributed systems?
Bhanu Jamwal: Scalability and consistency are critical for modern applications aiming to deliver high availability and optimal performance. While traditional databases struggle with horizontal scaling, TiDB excels in both scalability and consistency for distributed systems. It’s intriguing to note that scalability is often evaluated along a single dimension—data growth.
However, scalability encompasses multiple dimensions, each influenced by specific use cases. Key dimensions include data growth, throughput, heavy metadata handling, batch processing, parallel online DDLs, and more.
TiDB is specifically designed and rigorously tested to handle scalability across these dimensions. Horizontal scaling, which involves adding more nodes to a system to increase capacity, is a cornerstone of TiDB’s design. This approach is not only cost-effective but also allows systems to grow exponentially by adding machines rather than upgrading existing ones. TiDB’s unique architecture separates the storage and compute layers, providing a highly flexible, efficient, and scalable solution.
TiDB also employs a sharding mechanism that automatically distributes data across multiple nodes, reducing bottlenecks and balancing workloads. Distributed systems often face challenges in maintaining data consistency across nodes. TiDB addresses this by using advanced replication mechanisms like the Multi-Raft consensus protocol, ensuring strong consistency while maintaining high availability and fault tolerance. Furthermore, its support for ACID-compliant transactions guarantees that data integrity is upheld, no matter the scale or complexity of operations.
IT Voice – How does TiDB differentiate itself in the highly competitive database market, particularly against traditional solutions like MySQL or PostgreSQL and cloud-native databases?
Bhanu Jamwal : Modern applications in rapidly growing businesses are producing data at 100 times the volume of previous levels and end consumers are highly sensitive to response times when using services. The database market is highly competitive and fragmented, with legacy vendors holding significant market share and emerging players rapidly gaining traction. Over the years, databases have evolved dramatically, with many adopting a strategic shift toward cloud-native architectures. TiDB sets itself apart in this landscape by blending the strengths of both SQL and NoSQL databases.
As a NewSQL database, it reimagines how relational databases are designed, built, and deployed at massive scale. Its unique architecture and innovative features position TiDB as a leader in redefining database capabilities for modern applications. Below are the architectural elements that distinguish TiDB in the market:
Horizontal scalability: TiDB can scale horizontally by adding more nodes, and handling increased loads without performance degradation, unlike traditional vertical scaling.
Automatic sharding: TiDB, an advanced distributed SQL database automates sharding, distributing data across nodes to balance loads and prevent bottlenecks, unlike the manual, error-prone sharding in traditional databases. It eliminates complexity of data sharding and removes any dependency of adding such sharding logic within an application.
Separation of storage and compute: TiDB tiered architecture separates storage and compute, allowing independent scaling of resources, which is ideal for dynamic cloud environments. This offers flexibility to scale computation layer for read heavy workloads and storage layer for write heavy workloads.
High availability and strong consistency: TiDB ensures high availability and strong consistency, maintaining functionality and continuous access to the database even during node failures.
Real-time HTAP: TiDB supports both transactional and analytical workloads, simplifying architecture by eliminating the need for separate OLTP and OLAP systems. With its advanced optimizer and well-designed architecture for storing data in both row and column orientations, TiDB intelligently routes queries to the appropriate orientation based on the query’s nature.
Cloud-native design: TiDB supports elastic scaling and deployment in various cloud environments. Users have option to deploy on premises by choosing either VM instances or chose Kubernetes. TiDB cloud offers managed services on leading cloud hyperscalers and offers TiDB serverless who demand auto scaling.
MySQL Compatibility: TiDB’s compatibility with MySQL allows users to migrate applications from MySQL to TiDB with minimal or no changes in most cases.
IT Voice- What industries or use cases have seen the highest adoption of TiDB, and how do you plan to expand its reach?
Bhanu Jamwal : Traditionally, TiDB has been widely adopted in industries like financial services, gaming, retail, e-commerce, and logistics. However, we’re seeing a significant uptick in adoption among SaaS companies As these companies scale and their data volumes surge, traditional databases often fall short of meeting their performance and scalability demands. TiDB is becoming their go-to solution for overcoming these challenges.
For example, In India, Kissflow, a no-code platform, runs a unified transactional and analytical workload by adopting TiDB’s HTAP architecture. This eliminates ETL latency, enabling real-time data insights for custom reporting and analytics. TiDB’s scalability and flexibility transformed Kissflow’s database strategy, delivering a seamless user experience for its global customer base.
IT Voice- What is TiDB’s approach to gaining traction in global markets, particularly in regions where cloud-native technologies are still emerging?
Bhanu Jamwal : TiDB is uniquely equipped to address the growth challenges faced by organizations, making it a rapidly adopted solution among leading global businesses. Its core mission is to alleviate the scaling challenges of modern applications, and many fast-growing companies have either migrated to TiDB or are in the evaluation process. TiDB excels in use cases that require high scalability, availability, data consistency, real-time analytics, or handling massive datasets in vector formats for AI applications, meeting the demands of high-growth scenarios.
Prominent global companies such as Airbnb, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Atlassian, and Samsung already leverage TiDB for these use cases. Being platform-agnostic, TiDB offers unmatched flexibility, allowing deployment on-premises using VMs, on Kubernetes for a cloud-native approach, or via TiDB Cloud’s managed services available across all three major hyperscalers.
IT Voice- How do TiDB’s HTAP capabilities address future analytical demands? Are there any plans to integrate TiDB with AI or machine learning workflows, and if so, how?
Bhanu Jamwal : TiDB’s Hybrid Transactional and Analytical Processing (HTAP) capabilities are well-aligned with future analytical demands, particularly as organizations increasingly seek integrated solutions that can handle both transactional and analytical workloads efficiently. Here’s an analysis of how TiDB HTAP meets these demands:
Unified OLTP and OLAP Capabilities: TiDB HTAP provides a single system that supports both Online Transactional Processing (OLTP) and Online Analytical Processing (OLAP). This integration allows businesses to gain real-time insights from transactional data without the need for separate analytical solutions.
Real-time Stream Processing: TiDB’s HTAP is real-time stream processing ensures that constantly flowing data is queryable in real-time. This capability is essential for businesses that rely on timely data for Business Intelligence (BI) queries and operational analytics.
Data Hub Functionality: TiDB HTAP acts as a central data repository, seamlessly connecting application data and data warehouse data. This functionality is increasingly important as organizations look to consolidate their data sources to meet specific business needs.
Strongly Consistent Analysis: TiDB HTAP ensures real-time, strongly consistent data analysis, which is vital for avoiding data latency and inconsistency issues.
IT Voice- As an open-source database, how does TiDB balance community-driven development with its commercial goals?
Bhanu Jamwal : At a time when many prominent open-source databases are transitioning to source-available models, limiting free access for developers, TiDB remains steadfast in its commitment to the open-source ethos. We proudly stand with the community, balancing our open-source foundation with commercial goals in a way that fosters collaboration and innovation.
We have a dedicated team for community building, and it is global and across the regions. We are investing a lot and have aggressive plans to grow this team further. India’s open-source community is a top priority for us.
With its vast pool of talented developers, we are dedicated to raising awareness about open-source and distributed databases, empowering them to build better applications. This collaboration goes both ways—we actively share knowledge and ideas while incorporating community feedback to continuously enhance TiDB.
IT Voice- Can you discuss TiDB’s capabilities in hybrid cloud environments and its support for multi-cloud deployments?
Bhanu Jamwal : Businesses are increasingly shifting towards multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud strategy for various business considerations. TiDB fits seamlessly into a multi-cloud architecture due to its flexibility, scalability, and robust feature set. TiDB components such as TiKV for storage and TiFlash for analytical processing are distributed across multiple availability zones (AZ) hence ensuring data availability. This distribution ensures continuous access to highly available data, capable of withstanding a complete AZ failure. Moreover, with TiDB’s availability across all major hyperscalers, users are not confined to a single provider and can easily migrate between cloud platforms as needed.
IT Voice- What measures does TiDB implement to ensure data security, particularly in regulated industries like finance and healthcare?
Bhanu Jamwal : Businesses face data protection challenges daily, and the stakes are especially high in regulated industries like finance and healthcare. With more user access points, the risk of vulnerabilities grows, leaving databases exposed to threats like SQL injection attacks, denial-of-service attacks, and exploits of unpatched vulnerabilities. The consequences include potential financial losses and, just as damaging, a blow to the organization’s reputation.
TiDB’s Trust Hub merges the highest standards of data protection with cutting-edge Zero Trust privacy and security principles. Zero Trust is a model designed to protect data and systems by ensuring that no one is trusted by default, whether they are inside or outside the organization. We strictly follow global regulations like GDPR and CCPA to safeguard customers personal data.
Our privacy practices include data minimization, purpose limitation, and gives full control over how customer data is used, including access and deletion options. We use advanced measures such as end-to-end encryption, multi-factor authentication, and continuous threat detection to protect customer data from unauthorized access and cyber threats. Standards like ISO 27001/27701 and SOC 1, 2 and 3 guide our security practices to ensure data is always safe.
We use advanced measures such as end-to-end encryption, multi-factor authentication, and continuous threat detection to protect data from unauthorized access and cyber threats.
IT Voice- Where do you see the distributed SQL database market heading in the next five years, and how is TiDB positioned to lead this transformation?
Bhanu Jamwal : Digital-native businesses in India are only beginning to tap into the full potential of customer reach. As innovation accelerates and user bases expand from Tier 1 to Tier 2 and 3 cities, there will be a surge in data generation, putting increasing pressure on underlying databases to handle the growing volume of data.
AI has added whole new dimension to the demand for distributed databases. I expect more and more adoption of distributed systems in the coming months. Over the past two decades, we’ve witnessed significant shifts in the database market: the rise of SQL databases in the early 2000s, followed by the NoSQL wave.
Now, a new era is unfolding—the age of distributed SQL databases. As data management becomes increasingly complex, distributed databases are poised to become indispensable in addressing these challenges. Cloud-based distributed databases may become ubiquitous for its flexibility and scalability, further enhancing its appeal.
TiDB is uniquely positioned to lead this transformation with its robust distributed architecture, scalability, and support for cutting-edge features like vector search.
IT Voice- What is the biggest challenge you face as a Regional India Head at TiDB?
Bhanu Jamwal : While TiDB is making significant strides and gaining visibility among businesses seeking solutions to their growing challenges, there is still much work to be done to raise awareness in the region. We have already made inroads with major players in India’s digital-native ecosystem, such as Flipkart, Delhivery, and Kissflow.
We aim to continue expanding our community and customer base through an accelerated approach. In 2025, we will host our first TiDB Users Day in India, a self-hosted event similar to those we run in other regions. The TiDB Users Day will provide an opportunity for our developer community to learn about distributed SQL databases and the impact they will have in the future. Currently, our platform is facilitating more than billions of transactions per year.
We are aggressively pursuing our plans to spread awareness about TiDB and expand our footprint in the country. Our India growth ambition includes five-fold growth in three years in terms of revenue, expansion of the India team, continued investment, collaboration with more partners, and support to the developers’ community.
