Introducing MariaDB MaxScale 2.0 GA

Today, I’m excited to announce the general availability of MariaDB MaxScale 2.0, our next generation database proxy. This new version includes important new functionality that integrates data streaming with Kafka and other data sources, as well as significant development work for better security and high availability.

MaxScale is a database proxy that sits between the application and database layer, which intelligently understands requests that are routed through it, including configuration and the state of the database servers where requests are routed.

MaxScale acts as multiple different agents – like a database firewall or a query router – and has a plug-in architecture, which makes it easy to extend and customize. Its lightweight, high-speed networking core is designed for scale, performance and throughput. Based on this core, you can utilize existing modules – authentication, filter and log, protocol, monitor, router, or customize and build new modules based on your needs.

Since MaxScale sits between clients and servers, and performs and centralizes important database administrative functions, it significantly reduces administration overhead for DevOps teams.

MaxScale 2.0 New Features

This new version includes new data streaming capabilities as well as new high availability and enterprise-grade security features.

  • Data Streaming: We added a new data streaming feature with binlog-to-Avro conversion and distribution modules. MaxScale can now replicate binlog events from MariaDB to Kafka. Data is sent to data lake environments like Hadoop or other data warehouses, which allows users to leverage real-time data for machine learning or real-time analytics.
  • Enterprise-grade Security: We also included new security features with an end-to-end SSL network layer encryption, local-only access and limit on the connection rate.
  • High Availability: We added the ability to continue read transactions if the primary is down in order to minimize downtime.

MaxScale 2.0 is a major achievement and it is made possible through the hard work of our MariaDB engineering team and support from our active community members. We encourage you to download MaxScale today and gain huge productivity for your DevOps teams.