Whither CockroachDB?

What this episode covers

Dave Pacheco, a co-founder of Oxide Computer Company, joins Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal to discuss Oxide's rigorous evaluation and adoption of CockroachDB for its control plane, and the company's response to Cockroach Labs' switch to a proprietary license. Pacheco details how past negative experiences with PostgreSQL at Joyent drove a decision-making process based on rigorous testing rather than 'vibes,' leading to CockroachDB's selection for its strong consistency and autonomous operation. The episode covers the technical trade-offs, including handling client-side retries and partial index corruption, and outlines Oxide's strategy to self-support the database indefinitely, leveraging its upcoming license flip to Apache 2.0.