Concept
Aerospike Database is a flash memory and in-memory open source distributed key value NoSQL database management system, marketed by the company also named Aerospike. Aerospike was first known as Citrusleaf. In August 2012, the company - which had been providing its database since 2010 - rebranded both the company and software name to Aerospike. The name "Aerospike" is derived from the aerospike engine, a type of rocket nozzle that is able to maintain its output efficiency over a large range of altitudes, and is intended to refer to the software's ability to scale up. In 2012, Aerospike acquired AlchemyDB, and integrated the two databases' functions, including the addition of a relational data management system. On June 24, 2014, Aerospike was opensourced under the AGPL 3.0 license for the Aerospike database server and the Apache License Version 2.0 for its Aerospike client software development kit. Aerospike Database is modeled under the shared-nothing architecture and written in C. It operates in three layers: a data storage layer, a self-managed distribution layer, and a cluster-aware client layer. Aerospike uses hybrid memory architecture: the database indices are stored fully in main random-access memory, while the data is stored on a persistent device using the data layer. The data layer stores the data in solid-state drive, NVMe or Persistent memory. Reading the data is done using a direct access to the record position on disk using a direct pointer from the primary index, and data writes are optimized through large block writes to reduce latency. This architecture to fetch all records from the persistent device and void the use of data cache. Aerospike also provides the ability to store the data fully in RAM, thus acting as an in-memory database. In that case, data would be persisted to either SSD, NVMe, PMEM or traditional rotational media. Aerospike provides single-record ACID transactions. The distribution layer is responsible to replicate the data across nodes to ensure the durability and immediate consistency properties of the transaction.