Anarchy in the Database: A Survey and Evaluation of Database Management System Extensibility

Posted by mttd@reddit | programming | View on Reddit | 2 comments

[-]

mttd@reddit (OP)

Abstract:

Extensions allow applications to expand the capabilities of database management systems (DBMSs) with custom logic. However, the extensibility environment for some DBMSs is fraught with perils, causing developers to resort to unorthodox methods to achieve their goals. This paper studies and evaluates the design of DBMS extensibility. First, we provide a comprehensive taxonomy of the types of DBMS extensibility. We then examine the extensibility of six DBMSs: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite, Redis, and DuckDB. We present an automated extension analysis toolkit that collects static and dynamic information on how an extension integrates into the DBMS. Our evaluation of over 400 PostgreSQL extensions shows that 16.8% of them are incompatible with at least one other extension and can cause system failures. These results also show the correlation between these failures and factors related to extension complexity and implementation.

Database Extensions Analyzer: https://github.com/cmu-db/ext-analyzer

Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7v0fubktoY

[-]

godndiogoat@reddit

Extension conflicts blow up in prod because nobody pins ABI versions or runs them together in CI.

Hook the ext-analyzer into your pipeline: spin up a fresh container, enable the extension set you care about, then run a quick regression suite. You’ll catch the catalog clashes before they get anywhere near staging. If you ship multiple DBs, publish a simple matrix-version X of extension A works up to Y, after that you need its fork. Treat it like libs on Linux: clear dependency graph, semantic versioning, tiny changelogs. For dynamic languages, ship a small smoke test script that runs CREATE EXTENSION …; SELECT 1; during package install. I’ve run Supabase and Hasura for rapid GraphQL, but DreamFactory covers the times I need one REST gateway across Postgres plus a couple weird DuckDB plugins without babysitting auth. Pin versions and test in CI or those conflicts will keep biting.