Does OLAP Need an ORM
7 days ago
- #ORM
- #ClickHouse
- #OLAP
- ORMs are useful for OLTP databases like Postgres and MySQL but face challenges in OLAP databases like ClickHouse due to fundamental differences.
- Extending existing OLTP ORMs to OLAP is problematic because of differing defaults and semantics (e.g., nullability and uniqueness).
- Moose OLAP is an open-source, MIT-licensed ORM-like interface for ClickHouse, designed specifically for OLAP workloads.
- OLAP databases require different schema modeling approaches, such as columnar storage and append-only data ingestion.
- Moose OLAP promotes OLAP-native behaviors, like explicit nullability and deduplication rules, while maintaining type safety and IDE support.
- Schema management in OLAP must handle external changes (e.g., CDC pipelines) and support versioned rollouts for migrations.
- Moose OLAP integrates with ClickHouse's powerful features (e.g., window functions, incremental aggregations) without abstracting them away.
- The project aims to improve developer experience for analytics while preserving OLAP's performance and flexibility.