(WIP)TiDB x Architecture

[dbsid]

First-time contributors' checklist

• I've signed the Contributor License Agreement, which is required for the repository owners to accept my contribution.

What is changed, added or deleted? (Required)

Which TiDB version(s) do your changes apply to? (Required)

Tips for choosing the affected version(s):

By default, CHOOSE MASTER ONLY so your changes will be applied to the next TiDB major or minor releases. If your PR involves a product feature behavior change or a compatibility change, CHOOSE THE AFFECTED RELEASE BRANCH(ES) AND MASTER.

For details, see tips for choosing the affected versions.

• master (the latest development version)
• v9.0 (TiDB 9.0 versions)
• v8.5 (TiDB 8.5 versions)
• v8.1 (TiDB 8.1 versions)
• v7.5 (TiDB 7.5 versions)
• v7.1 (TiDB 7.1 versions)
• v6.5 (TiDB 6.5 versions)
• v6.1 (TiDB 6.1 versions)
• v5.4 (TiDB 5.4 versions)

What is the related PR or file link(s)?

• This PR is translated from:
• Other reference link(s):

Do your changes match any of the following descriptions?

• Delete files
• Change aliases
• Need modification after applied to another branch
• Might cause conflicts after applied to another branch

[ti-chi-bot]

[APPROVALNOTIFIER] This PR is NOT APPROVED

This pull-request has been approved by:
Once this PR has been reviewed and has the lgtm label, please assign oreoxmt for approval. For more information see the Code Review Process.
Please ensure that each of them provides their approval before proceeding.

The full list of commands accepted by this bot can be found here.

Details

Needs approval from an approver in each of these files:

• OWNERS

Approvers can indicate their approval by writing /approve in a comment
Approvers can cancel approval by writing /approve cancel in a comment

[ti-chi-bot]

Hi @dbsid. Thanks for your PR.

I'm waiting for a pingcap member to verify that this patch is reasonable to test. If it is, they should reply with /ok-to-test on its own line. Until that is done, I will not automatically test new commits in this PR, but the usual testing commands by org members will still work. Regular contributors should join the org to skip this step.

Once the patch is verified, the new status will be reflected by the ok-to-test label.

I understand the commands that are listed here.

Details

Instructions for interacting with me using PR comments are available here. If you have questions or suggestions related to my behavior, please file an issue against the kubernetes-sigs/prow repository.

[gemini-code-assist]

Summary of Changes

Hello @dbsid, I'm Gemini Code Assist¹! I'm currently reviewing this pull request and will post my feedback shortly. In the meantime, here's a summary to help you and other reviewers quickly get up to speed!

This pull request introduces detailed documentation for the new TiDB X architecture, outlining its fundamental shift towards a cloud-native, 'Share-Everything' design. It addresses limitations of the classic TiDB architecture by implementing innovations such as object storage as the single source of truth, a 'Compute and Compute' separation for workload isolation, and an LSM Forest storage engine, all aimed at enhancing scalability, stability, cost-effectiveness, and performance predictability.

Highlights

• New TiDB X Architecture Documentation: This pull request introduces comprehensive documentation for the new TiDB X architecture, detailing its fundamental shift from a 'Share-Nothing' to a 'Share-Everything' Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) designed for the AI era and massive cloud scalability.
• Object Storage Integration: TiDB X leverages object storage (e.g., Amazon S3) as the single source of truth for all data, enabling faster scaling, improved backup mechanisms, and instant node provisioning by decoupling data from local disks.
• Compute-Compute Separation: The architecture introduces a novel 'Separation of Compute and Compute' design, isolating online transactional workloads (lightweight compute) from heavy maintenance tasks (heavy compute) to ensure predictable performance and optimized Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
• LSM Forest Storage Engine: TiDB X redesigns the storage engine from a single LSM-tree to an LSM Forest, assigning each Region its own independent LSM Tree. This eliminates compaction overhead and global mutex contention during cluster operations, improving stability and performance.

🧠 New Feature in Public Preview: You can now enable Memory to help Gemini Code Assist learn from your team's feedback. This makes future code reviews more consistent and personalized to your project's style. Click here to enable Memory in your admin console.

Using Gemini Code Assist

The full guide for Gemini Code Assist can be found on our documentation page, here are some quick tips.

Invoking Gemini

You can request assistance from Gemini at any point by creating a comment using either /gemini <command> or @gemini-code-assist <command>. Below is a summary of the supported commands on the current page.

Feature	Command	Description
Code Review	/gemini review	Performs a code review for the current pull request in its current state.
Pull Request Summary	/gemini summary	Provides a summary of the current pull request in its current state.
Comment	@gemini-code-assist	Responds in comments when explicitly tagged, both in pull request comments and review comments.
Help	/gemini help	Displays a list of available commands.

Customization

To customize Gemini Code Assist for GitHub experience, repository maintainers can create a configuration file and/or provide a custom code review style guide (such as PEP-8 for Python) by creating and adding files to a .gemini/ folder in the base of the repository. Detailed instructions can be found here.

Limitations & Feedback

Gemini Code Assist may make mistakes. Please leave feedback on any instances where its feedback is incorrect or counter productive. You can react with 👍 and 👎 on @gemini-code-assist comments. If you're interested in giving your feedback about your experience with Gemini Code Assist for Github and other Google products, sign up here.

You can also get AI-powered code generation, chat, as well as code reviews directly in the IDE at no cost with the Gemini Code Assist IDE Extension.

Footnotes

1. Review the Privacy Notices, Generative AI Prohibited Use Policy, Terms of Service, and learn how to configure Gemini Code Assist in GitHub here. Gemini can make mistakes, so double check it and use code with caution. ↩

[gemini-code-assist]

Code Review

This pull request introduces a new documentation page for the TiDB X architecture. The content provides a good high-level overview of the new architecture, its motivations, and key innovations. My review focuses on improving clarity, correcting some typos and grammatical errors, and ensuring consistency in terminology, as per the repository's style guide. I've provided several suggestions to enhance readability and technical accuracy.

[siddontang]

Review Comments

Terminology Suggestion: Share-Everything → Shared-Storage

The term Share-Everything is imprecise and creates an awkward comparison (as @likidu noted - comparing a distributed database to an SOA is not apples-to-apples).

Recommendation: Consider using Shared-Storage instead:

• Maintains linguistic symmetry with Share-Nothing
• Accurately describes what is actually shared (the storage layer, not everything)
• Industry-aligned terminology (similar to disaggregated storage used by Snowflake and modern data platforms)

Alternative framing for the intro:

TiDB X transitions from a Share-Nothing architecture with local storage to a disaggregated architecture with shared object storage as the persistent layer.

---

Structural Issues

1. Title mismatch (lines 2 vs 7): Frontmatter says title: TiDB X Architecture but the first heading is # TiDB X Introduction. These should align.

2. Heading levels: Since the frontmatter provides the page title, content headings should start at ## not #.

3. Missing newline at EOF (line 109): Add a trailing newline.

---

Content Issues

• Line 18: Incomplete sentence fragment - The Share-nothing architecture of TiDB Classic, effectively overcoming... needs restructuring
• Line 38: Typo - architecute should be architecture
• Line 43: Missing space - TiProxy(or load balancers) should be TiProxy (or load balancers)

---

PR Description

Please fill in the required What is changed, added or deleted? section before moving out of draft.

---

Overall the content is well-structured and provides good technical depth. The diagrams help illustrate the architectural differences clearly.