Exploring the Technical Details of OrioleDB: A New Database Engine for PostgreSQL

Supabase just acquired OrioleDB, a storage engine for PostgreSQL.

Oriole gets creative with MVCC! It uses an UNDO log rather than keeping multiple versions of an entire data row (tuple). This means when you update data, Oriole tracks the changes needed to "undo" the update if necessary. Think of this like the "undo" function in a text editor. Instead of keeping a full copy of the old text, it just remembers what changed. This can be much smaller. This also saves space by eliminating the need for a garbage collection process.

It also has a bunch of additional performance boosters like data compression, easy integration with data lakes, and index-organized tables.

Show notes:

• Oriole joins Supabase
• Oriole Git
• Percona Talk on OrioleDB
• Supabase

Chris Gwilliams:

• LinkedIn

Nicolay Gerold:

• LinkedIn
• X (Twitter)

00:42 Introduction to OrioleDB

04:38 The Undo Log Approach

08:39 Improving Performance for High Throughput Databases

11:08 My take on OrioleDB

OrioleDB, storage engine, Postgres, table access methods, undo log, high throughput databases, automated features, new use cases, S3, data migration