What are the benefits of PolarDB-PolarDB(PolarDB)-阿里云帮助中心

Ecosystem compatibility

Database ecosystem	Description
MySQL	PolarDB for MySQL 100% compatible with native MySQL and ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL. You can migrate a MySQL database to PolarDB for MySQL without modifying any application code or configurations. PolarDB Distributed Edition Standard Edition: 100% compatible with MySQL. Enterprise Edition: Highly compatible with MySQL.
PostgreSQL	PolarDB for PostgreSQL is 100% compatible with PostgreSQL 11 and 14. Use PolarDB for PostgreSQL exactly as you would native PostgreSQL.
Oracle	PolarDB for PostgreSQL (Compatible with Oracle) is highly compatible with Oracle and provides comprehensive Oracle syntax compatibility. It uses a share-everything architecture with Oracle-consistent file organization, MVCC, syntax, and native OCI interfaces, enabling one-click Oracle-to-cloud migration. High compatibility.

High elasticity

Feature

Description

Serverless

PolarDB for MySQL and PolarDB for PostgreSQL support the serverless billing method.

Serverless scales resources dynamically with multi-node high availability. A single cluster scales from 0 to 1,000 cores in seconds, handling traffic spikes without business impact. Serverless.

Scaling in minutes

PolarDB for MySQL and PolarDB for PostgreSQL separate storage from compute. With container virtualization and shared storage, you can add or remove nodes in minutes.

Note

For PolarDB for MySQL Standard Edition, you must enable auto scaling.

Cost-effective

Feature	Description
Flexible billing	PolarDB offers flexible billing to reduce costs. For short-term needs, create pay-as-you-go clusters and release them after use. For long-term needs, create subscription clusters. Longer durations offer greater discounts. For intermittent or unpredictable workloads, PolarDB serverless billing auto-scales compute and storage to eliminate idle resources and reduce O&M costs.
Pay-as-you-go for storage	PolarDB bills storage pay-as-you-go—you pay only for capacity used.
Smart-SSD	Smart-SSDs achieve a high compression ratio without reducing speed, lowering storage costs by 40%.
Shared storage	PolarDB compute nodes share one data copy. Adding a read-only node incurs only compute costs, significantly reducing scale-out expenses.
Free proxy	PolarDB includes a free, highly available proxy with automatic read/write splitting, load balancing, consistency levels, connection pools, and overload protection. PolarDB for MySQL: Database proxy.
Cold data archiving	PolarDB archives infrequently accessed data to low-cost Object Storage Service (OSS), reducing storage costs. PolarDB for MySQL: Cold data archiving.

High performance

Feature	Description
Transactional and analytical performance	PolarDB for MySQL OLTP: Deeply optimized kernel with physical replication, high-speed RDMA networks, and distributed shared storage delivers up to 6x the performance of open source MySQL. OLAP: Lightweight analytical acceleration with Elastic Parallel Query and In-Memory Column Index (IMCI) boosts analytical performance by up to 400x. PolarDB for PostgreSQL Uses NVMe SSDs and RoCE RDMA networks combined with kernel optimizations (Polar CSN, pre-reading, pre-extension, rel_size_cache) to reduce I/O and improve transactional performance. Performance Whitepaper. PolarDB Distributed Edition Provides a Clustered Columnar Index (CCI) that adds a columnar secondary index covering all columns, enabling tables to hold both row and column data. A cost-based optimizer and vectorized execution support hybrid OLTP/OLAP queries in a single SQL engine. Performance Whitepaper.
Parameter optimization	Alibaba Cloud database experts optimize all PolarDB parameters based on years of production experience, ensuring your PolarDB cluster runs with optimal configuration. PolarDB for MySQL also provides high-performance parameter templates for further tuning.
High-speed access	Deploy PolarDB with other products in the same region. Internal network communication reduces latency, increases throughput, and saves on data transfer costs.
Global consistency (high-performance mode)	PolarDB for MySQL provides global consistency (high-performance mode) using Commit Timestamp (CTS) and RDMA networks at the kernel layer, ensuring strongly consistent reads from any replica.

High availability

Feature	Description
Multi-zone deployment	PolarDB supports multi-zone deployment to withstand data center-level failures. PolarDB for MySQL: Multi-node deployment architecture.
Geo-disaster recovery	PolarDB for MySQL and PolarDB Distributed Edition support the global database network (GDN)—a network of PolarDB clusters across regions that synchronizes data and provides geo-disaster recovery with local reads. PolarDB for MySQL: Global Database Network (GDN).
Multi-node failover	PolarDB multi-node architecture provides automatic failover from the primary read-write node to a read-only node on failure. PolarDB for MySQL: Multi-node deployment architecture.
Backup within seconds and point-in-time recovery	PolarDB backup and recovery protects data against accidental deletion, system vulnerabilities, ransomware, hardware failures, and natural disasters. PolarDB for MySQL: Backup and recovery.
Flashback query	PolarDB flashback query lets you query cluster, database, or table state at any past point in time. PolarDB for MySQL: Flashback query.

High security

Feature	Description
Access security	PolarDB enforces multi-layer access control with IP whitelists, security groups, and SQL firewalls. PolarDB for MySQL: Configure a cluster whitelist.
Data security	PolarDB Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) encrypts data at rest and decrypts it on read, protecting data files on disk. PolarDB for MySQL: Configure TDE.
Data transmission security	PolarDB supports SSL encryption to secure data in transit at the transport layer. PolarDB for MySQL: Configure SSL encryption.
Data masking	PolarDB for MySQL dynamic data masking transforms sensitive PII before returning query results. Specify the accounts, databases, tables, or columns to mask—the database proxy handles masking transparently while preserving data freshness.
Always-confidential	PolarDB confidential database ensures only data owners can access plaintext, preventing leakage from cloud services, developers, O&M staff, or compromised accounts. PolarDB for MySQL: PolarDB Always-confidential.
Security audit	PolarDB SQL insight and auditing provides full request logging with search, SQL insight, security audit, traffic playback, and stress testing to troubleshoot performance, identify risks, and validate instance types. PolarDB for MySQL: SQL Explorer.