As Pinterest went in search of a next-generation , unifying data storage system , the company found the perfect solution in PingCAP ’ s TiDB
Pinterest had long recognised the need to optimise its data storage system . Using HBase , the image sharing platform was carrying a large footprint , with more than 50 clusters and data totalling one petabyte . Enter PingCAP , an enterprise company launched in 2015 by seasoned infrastructure engineers frustrated with the way databases were managed , scaled and maintained .
Seeing no capable solutions on the market , they built TiDB , an advanced , open-source , distributed SQL database for powering modern applications with elastic scaling , realtime analytics and continuous access to data .
What was Pinterest trying to achieve ?
“ Pinterest ’ s storage and caching team wanted to find their next-generation , unifying storage system ,” explains Liquan Pei , Principal Technologist at PingCAP . “ As a NoSQL database , HBase offers a very simple key value interface , but the business logistics are complex . To add new features , Pinterest had to build additional layers on top of HBase , which incurs a very high maintenance workload .” With those motivations in mind , Pinterest evaluated more than 15 solutions and settled on TiDB in 2020 . Pei says the reason for Pinterest choosing PingCAP came down to TiDB ’ s robust technical capabilities and PingCAP ’ s high-quality enterprise support .
PingCAP brings lasting benefits to Pinterest data operations
TiDB is set to bring a host of benefits to Pinterest ’ s day-to-day operations . When carrying out the project , PingCAP evaluated Pinterest ’ s secondary index services system and , using TiDB , achieved better performance and 80 % cost reduction .
“ Because of TiDB ’ s capabilities , we were able to reduce the system from six components to one , greatly reducing the maintenance burden ,” adds Pei . In the long run , TiDB ’ s expressiveness and scalability should also help Pinterest ’ s IT teams from a practical perspective . Pei continues : “ People from Pinterest will enjoy peace of mind because a lot of work is handled by TiDB , so they can focus instead on more impactful work .”