The Latest in Distributed SQL - February
TiDB, powered by PingCAP
The most advanced open-source distributed SQL database for modern, high-demand applications.
A new month is here, and so is another round of ideas, stories, and hands-on learning from the TiDB community. In this edition of In the Node, we’re focusing on what it takes to scale reliably in 2026 - from APAC to EMEA to North America.
From deep dives on Amazon Aurora migration to AI-native workloads with TiDB, this issue brings together practical webinars, field-tested patterns, and resources you can plug directly into your roadmap.
You’ll also find fresh tips on security, local-first RAG, cost control, and Raft internals, plus a slate of upcoming appearances at SCALE 23x, SREcon, the Bolt/TiDB meetup, and more.
Let’s get into it. — The TiDB Team
Latest Pings
Webinar: Escape from Amazon Aurora
As Aurora workloads grow, many teams run into the same problems: unpredictable costs, replication lag, rigid scaling, and multi-region complexity. In this session, we'll walk through the top reasons companies leave Aurora and share a practical framework to migrate MySQL workloads to distributed SQL.
Webinar: The AI Database for Agentic Workloads (EMEA)
Agentic AI systems introduce new challenges around cost, scale, and operational complexity. In this session, learn how TiDB supports fast-changing, stateful workloads while helping teams avoid infrastructure sprawl and unexpected cost spikes as AI usage grows.
CAP Tips
Securing Distributed SQL in a Zero Trust World
As databases shift from monoliths to hybrid and multi-cloud distributed SQL, perimeter security breaks down fast. This guide gives CISOs, security architects, and DBAs a practical roadmap to implement Zero Trust — from BYOC architectures to mTLS, RBAC, and encryption — without crippling performance or teams.
Blog: Local-first RAG with SQLite and OpenClaw
As AI agents move closer to user devices, teams need a way to give them long-term memory without adding cloud complexity. This blog shows how OpenClaw layers vector search and metadata on top of SQLite to build a local-first RAG memory system that’s fast, private, and easy to ship.
Recommended by LinkedIn
Blog: Closing the Cost Gap in Over-Provisioned Databases
Most teams still pay for database capacity sized for rare peaks, not everyday workloads. This post explains why utilization stays so low in cloud-native systems and how TiDB Cloud’s usage-based model helps teams cut idle spend without sacrificing reliability.
Blog: Tuning Raft Region Size for Stable, Fast TiDB Clusters
Raft region size quietly controls how TiDB scales, recovers, and handles hotspots. This blog breaks down how Regions work in TiDB, why “too small” or “too large” settings can cripple performance and recovery, and how to stay in the 256 MB "Goldilocks zone" for predictable operations.
Upcoming Instances
Bolt x TiDB Meetup: Scaling the AI-Native Future
Join us at Bolt HQ for an evening focused on what it really takes to scale AI-native applications on a modern database. You’ll hear how Bolt runs high-growth, high-reliability workloads on TiDB today, and get a first look at how TiDB X is redefining the database category with AI-ready, distributed SQL.
If you’re a backend, platform, data, or AI engineer who cares about performance, reliability, and cloud cost control, this meetup is a chance to go beyond slideware and dig into real architectures, trade-offs, and lessons learned from production.
Join TiDB at SCALE 23x in Pasadena
Heading to SCALE 23x in Pasadena this year? Drop by Booth 222 to connect with the TiDB team, swap war stories about scaling databases in production, and see how distributed SQL is powering the next wave of cloud-native and AI-driven applications.
Whether you’re running Kubernetes at scale, modernizing from legacy databases, or just exploring new options for your data layer, this is a great chance to ask questions, see demos, and meet the people building TiDB in person.
Meet TiDB at SREcon 26 in Seattle
We will be in Seattle for SREcon 2026 to talk about keeping AI-heavy, globally distributed databases boring and reliable. Swing by to chat about failure modes, recovery, and how TiDB handles noisy neighbors and agent-driven bursts. We are also hosting a happy hour on Wednesday, March 25 – details coming soon.
