How FoundationDB Powers SnowflakeDB's Metadata

Explore how FoundationDB powers SnowflakeDB's metadata in this 22-minute conference talk by Ashish Motivala from Snowflake Computing. Discover why FoundationDB was chosen as the preferred OLTP engine for SnowflakeDB, a cloud SQL analytics database, and learn about its integral role in the architecture. Gain insights into the purposes FoundationDB serves, its scalability from tens to thousands of servers over 4+ years, and the reliability of Snowflake's FoundationDB clusters. Delve into topics such as Snowflake's architecture as global services, the challenges of using MySQL as a metastore, the entity layer and specification, and metadata features powered by FoundationDB. Examine typical production deployments and best practices for operating FoundationDB in the cloud, concluding with key takeaways from Snowflake's experience.

Intro
SNOWFLAKE: DATA WAREHOUSE BUILT FOR THE CLOUD
SNOWFLAKE ARCHITECTURE: GLOBAL SERVICES
MYSQL AS A METASTORE - NOT SIMPLE
FDB FITS THE BUILDI
ENTITY LAYER
ENTITY SPECIFICATION
ENTITY INTERFACE
THE STORY OF FDB AT SNOWFLAKE
METADATA FEATURES POWERED BY FDB
TYPICAL PROD DEPLOYMENT
OPERATING FDB IN THE CLOUD
TAKEAWAYS