OceanBase 4.0 Core Technology Overview

On August 10, 2022, the OceanBase annual conference was held simultaneously in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, where founder and chief scientist Yang Zhenkun delivered a keynote titled “OceanBase 4.0 Core Technology Interpretation,” introducing the industry’s first single‑node distributed integrated database and reducing RTO from 30 seconds to 8 seconds.

Yang traced the evolution from version 0.1 to 4.0, describing each era: 0.1 (baseline + incremental, central write + distributed read), 0.5 (high availability with Paxos three‑replica), 1.0 (distributed transaction), 2.0 (native distributed, horizontal scaling, compression, two TPC‑C leaderboard wins), 3.0 (Oracle compatibility, open source), and 4.0 (single‑node distributed integration).

In the 0.1 era, the team solved the Taobao favorites problem by separating data into a disk‑resident baseline and an in‑memory incremental part, a novel structure for relational databases, and adopted a semi‑distributed architecture with a central write node and multiple read nodes.

From 2013, OceanBase introduced a three‑replica Paxos scheme for high availability, achieving RPO = 0 and RTO < 30 s—firsts in the industry. Later, the system evolved to full distributed writes, supporting multi‑point writes for Alipay’s accounting database by 2016.

Version 2.0 improved performance, reaching 60 million TPS (twice Oracle) in small‑scale tests and 700 million TPS in large‑scale TPC‑C benchmarks, maintaining top positions in global rankings.

Version 3.0 added TPC‑H benchmark leadership with 15.26 million QphH; subsequent versions focused on miniaturization and analytical capabilities to serve broader customers beyond Ant Group.

OceanBase 4.0, dubbed “single‑node distributed integration,” combines distributed and single‑node architectures, enabling the database to run on ordinary PCs while delivering sub‑8‑second RTO and maintaining enterprise‑grade performance.

The release also expands MySQL compatibility, offering community and enterprise editions with identical performance, open‑sourcing most MySQL‑compatible features while retaining only management and security functions.

The speaker concluded by emphasizing the dedication of the OceanBase team over twelve years, the code’s passion‑driven development, and confidence that OceanBase will continue to grow with partners and customers.