MariaDB has announced the immediate availability of a new release of MariaDB SkySQL, a second generation cloud database service. SkySQL offers fully managed databases including its flagship distributed SQL product MariaDB Xpand for maximum resilience and scalability.

As the company puts it, the release brings new innovation that lets organizations better manage their cloud database costs. SkySQL now enables autoscaling, which scales resources when demand surges and back down when demand normalizes to save costs. SkySQL also introduces serverless analytics to uncover insights on all current data without the need for ETL and all while paying for only what is used.

Unlike first generation cloud databases for MariaDB, SkySQL enables autoscaling of both compute and storage in response to changes in demand. Rules specify when autoscaling is triggered, for example when CPU utilization is over 75% over all replicas sustained for 30 minutes, then a new replica or node will be added to handle the increase. Similarly, when CPU utilization is less than 50% over all replicas for an hour, nodes are downgraded. Users always specify the top and bottom so there are never any cost surprises.

When paired with Xpand, MariaDB’s distributed SQL database, autoscaling means never worrying about unexpected spikes in demand.

No ETL is required to do analytics! SkySQL enables operational analytics on active transactional data without reducing operational throughput as well as external data sources using a serverless analytics layer powered by Apache Spark SQL.

The new release of SkySQL is now generally available (GA) on AWS and Google Cloud, and includes updated MariaDB product versions: Xpand 6.1.1, Enterprise Server 10.6.12, and ColumnStore 6.3.1.