Updated MariaDB Images Available on Docker

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The 10.5 release of MariaDB Community Server which includes ColumnStore columnar storage engine is now available as an image on Docker hub. Columnar data storage is designed for analytics workloads with large data sets and ad hoc queries. With the MariaDB Community Server 10.5 Docker image, developers can now spin up a container to use both row-based and columnar-based functionality, and develop applications that leverage blended transactions and analytics (also known as hybrid transactional/analytical processing, HTAP or smart transactions).

Docker created the industry standard for container software and was a favorite platform among  developers in the 2019 Stack Overflow Developer Survey. Containers are a convenient and portable way to easily spin up and use software. Docker explains containers as “an abstraction at the app layer that packages code and dependencies together” so the application runs quickly and reliably from one computing environment to another. Using a container is generally faster and easier than using a VM and takes much less space.

The official MariaDB image of MariaDB Community Server 10.5 with ColumnStore 1.5 is maintained on Docker Hub. Previous versions of Community Server included ColumnStore as a separate server code fork. With this release of Community Server, ColumnStore is part of the server package and easier to install; and with Docker, it has never been easier to try out ColumnStore.

This docker image will start up a single server instance of MariaDB Community Server 10.5 (with ColumnStore) running on CentOS 8 and instructions for HTAP configuration are included on the page. Just go to Docker Hub, install Docker and pull the image.

docker run -d -p 3306:3306 --name mcs_container mariadb/columnstore

We expect most readers are familiar with traditional transactional workloads, with row-based data storage, and the use of indexes to optimize query performance. This functionality is present in the Docker image, but we also make available column-based storage, which does not depend on indexes for performance, while allowing you to perform the highly-variable and hard-to-index queries present in analytical workloads in real-time.

This image also provides a flavor of HTAP that works with Community Server 10.5, combining transactional and analytical capabilities in a single platform. If you need HTAP capabilities at scale and production-ready, we encourage you to try MariaDB SkySQL‘s MariaDB Platform for Smart Transactions, or the Smart Transactions features of MariaDB Platform which combines MariaDB Enterprise Server, MariaDB MaxScale and MariaDB ColumnStore.

Detailed instructions on how to deploy MariaDB Community Server 10.5 and ColumnStore 1.5 are available via GitHub. Give it a try!

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