Overview #

Monotone is a modern embeddable data storage designed from the ground up precisely for sequential workloads, such as append write and range scans.

Sequential workloads are at the foundation of the following use cases: IoT, events, time series, crypto, blockchain, finance, monitoring, logs collection, and Kafka-style workloads.

Using Monotone, you can create high-performance serverless solutions for storage and processing data directly within your application.

Made to match the following requirements:

• Collect and process events in large volumes serially or by time (auto-increment by default)
• Write events as fast as possible, maintaining order and persistence
• Delete or Update events by primary key when necessary (but rarely or never needed)
• Read any range of events as fast as possible using a primary key
• Efficiently store and manage large volumes of data using partitions
• Efficiently compress and encrypt data
• Transparently update partitions and recompress, decrypt data without blocking readers and writers
• Extend disk space without downtime by plugging additional storage
• Seamlessly work on top of S3
• Make sense of Hot and Cold data patterns using Data Tiering

The storage architecture is inspired by a Log-Structured approach and implements a custom-made memory-disk-cloud hybrid engine.

Learn more about its Architecture.

Features #

• Automatic Range Partitioning

  Automatically partition data by range or time intervals (min/max). Transparently create partitions on write. Support partitions in the past and future. Automatically or manually refresh partitions on disk or cloud after being updated.

• Transparent Compression

  Compress and recompress partitions automatically on refresh or partition move. Allow different compression types and compression level settings. Everything is done transparently without blocking readers and writers.

• Transparent Encryption

  Encrypt and decrypt partitions automatically on refresh, partition move, and read. Compatible with compression and done transparently without blocking readers and writers.

• Multiple Storages

  Create storage to store data on different storage devices. Set different storage settings, such as compression, associated cloud, etc. Manually or automatically move partitions between storages. Automatic compaction is made when moving to change settings. Create or drop storage online. Extend disk space by adding new storage without downtime.

• Data Tiering

  Understand Hot and Cold data by creating data policies involving several storages. Define Pipeline to specify where partitions are created and when they need to be moved or dropped. All are done automatically or manually.

• Bottomless Storage

  Associate storage with the cloud for extensive and cheaper storage. Transparently access partitions on the cloud. Automate partitions lifecycle for the cloud using Pipeline.

  Automatically or manually handle updates by reuploading partitions to the cloud. Download or upload partitions. Move partitions between local storage and the cloud. Move partitions between different cloud services.