Dan The Engineer

Technology, Tutorials and Product Reviews

Speedy recovery without Backups

Backups are often thought about in the context of a disaster, the loss of a data centre, SAN or other infrastructure. Fortunately for operators and admins everywhere these are relatively rare occurrences. Backups are also exist to give comfort in the form of regulatory and audit compliance. However, the most

Auto-Scaling Your Distributed Database: A Bad Idea?

In the past few years, software engineers have become increasingly aware of the importance of scaling data-intensive applications to meet the needs of its users. As with most things, though, there are both good and bad ways to go about it. One particularly bad approach that deserves a closer look

Why stored procedures are a bad idea (and what to do instead)

Most people don’t know what stored procedures are, and even fewer people know why they should avoid them like the plague. I’m going to tell you exactly why you should avoid database stored procedures and what to use instead of them. What are database stored procedures? Stored procedures

Why Is Database Isolation Level So Important? You Might Be surprised.

You’ve probably heard the term database isolation level before, but how important is it? In other words, should you let your database admin worry about it, or should you care enough to be familiar with it? And if you should care, what are these different isolation levels anyway? The

The Advantages of OLAP and OLTP Database Separation

When it comes to designing your data strategy, you have several options for where you can store your data and how it will be processed. Two that you’ll likely hear about are the OLAP (online analytical processing) and OLTP (online transactional processing) databases, and whether or not they should

Why Distributed Databases Are Becoming More Popular

We have been hearing about distributed databases for some time now, but what exactly does it mean? Also, why are these databases becoming so popular? Let’s take a look at these questions, as well as some of the real-world applications of distributed databases, to better understand what this technology

Build a Multi Region Python App with CockroachDB, Django and K8s

Build a Multi Region Python App with CockroachDB, Django and K8s

A request came across my desk the other day asking whether I had any experience with Django and would I like to see if I could get this working with our multi region capabilities. I had never heard of Django before but never to be one to turn down a

Deploying resilient Camunda against CockroachDB

The Background: Java-based BPMN for workflow and process automation. It allows organisations to easily design and automate processes whether these are human workflows or to mange flows from microservices architecture. Although Camunda can be consumed as SaaS, there is also the option to deploy on customer managed hardware. Although Camunda

Database Isolation Levels and Data Anomalies

Database Isolation Levels and Data Anomalies

Database isolation and data anomalies are important to understand. This Blog Post explains details regarding both and how they are linked

Streaming Data from CockroachDB to Redpanda

Streaming Data from CockroachDB to Redpanda

Streaming Data from CockroachDB to Redpanda

Active Passive vs Multi-Active Database Topologies

A Comparison of Active Passive vs Multi-Active Database Deployments

DevOps culture: The need of the day.

DevOps Culture is the Future

CockroachDB vs AWS Aurora

This article is all about comparing the feature sets of CockroachDB and Amazon Aurora. These are two of the most popular SQL and databases of the cloud era

CockroachDB vs SQL Server

A quick comparison of cockroachdb and SQL Server.

Top 5 Useful Commands with CockroachDB

Top 5 Useful Commands with CockroachDB

The Top 5 Commands used to help you become more proficient in administering and using CockroachDB

Schema Design Considerations with CockroachDB. What is a Hotspot Not?

Schema Design Considerations with CockroachDB. What is a Hotspot Not?

Want to know what considerations to make when selecting primary keys in cockroachDB? Want to know how CockroachDB diversifies and replicates it data?

CockroachDB - Fun with Encryption

In this post, Dan shows you how to create multiple store directories for CockroachDB nodes and encrypt them using different encryption keys. Different tables can then be stored and encrypted using different keys.

How to get started with CockroachDB - Binary, Docker or Kubernetes

Want to get started with CockroachDB. This is the perfect blog post for you. Today I am going to show you how to get started with distributed sql databases so you can start developing your application locally on your laptop.