Joins, Multi-Stage Queries, and More: Relive the Excitement of Druid Summit 2023

Druid Summit kicked off its fourth year as a global gathering of minds passionate about real-time analytics and the power of Apache Druid. This year’s event revealed a common theme: the growing significance of Druid in real-time analytics, highlighted by real-world examples of diverse applications, scalability enhancements, and strategic advantages over conventional analytics architectures. 

Organized and hosted virtually by Imply, the one-day summit welcomed nearly 1,000 registrants, showcased three keynotes, and featured over 20+ breakout sessions led by subject matter experts from a variety of industries. Ready for the instant replay? Let’s dive in.

Real-Time Analytics in the Real World

Fangjin Yang, Druid co-founder, PMC member, and CEO and co-founder of Imply kicked off the summit with his keynote, “Real-Time Analytics in the Real World.” He set the stage by showcasing the tangible impact of Druid in today’s data and analytics landscape. Drawing from the experiences of companies like Atlassian, Netflix, and Ibotta that use Druid, he presented real-world examples that highlighted the platform’s ability to deliver real-time analytics across a broad array of industries and use cases. Attendees learned best practices for developing real-time analytics applications and why Druid is at the forefront of meeting the challenges posed by the ever-increasing demand for real-time insights.

Druid 28 and Beyond

Gian Merlino, Druid co-founder, Imply CTO, and Chair of the Apache Druid PMC took the audience on a comprehensive tour of recent releases, culminating in the unveiling of Druid 28.0. His keynote provided a detailed exploration of the latest features, enhancements, and improvements that Druid has introduced. His insights didn’t stop there; he also outlined the future trajectory of Druid, giving the audience a sneak peek into the platform’s evolving functionality, scalability, and overall capabilities. It was a journey through the present and an exciting glimpse into where Druid is heading.

Druid, or a Data Warehouse?

The event’s final keynote, by Ben Rogojan (also known as “The Seattle Data Guy”), tackled a topic many organizations grapple with: “When I Decide To Use Druid Instead Of A Data Warehouse.” Rogojan brought clarity to the decision-making process, shedding light on the unique strengths and advantages that make Druid the preferable choice over traditional data warehouses in certain scenarios. As organizations continue to navigate the diverse landscape of data processing and analytics platforms, Rogojan’s insights provide a compass for those seeking the most effective solution for their analytical needs.

Session Highlights

The jam-packed day of Druid Summit featured a diverse array of sessions, each offering a deep dive into various aspects of Druid. Notable sessions included:

• “Real-time Telemetry at IoT Scale with Druid” by Pramod Immaneni and Connie Wang, Rivian: Attendees learned about Rivian’s real-time stack with Druid at its core, enabling software-driven vehicle control and infotainment. Watch the session.

• “SpectatorHistogram: Enabling Efficient Percentile Approximations” by Ben Sykes, Netflix: Get a deeper understanding of the SpectatorHistogram extension, a Druid storage format capable of approximating distributions and supporting native percentile queries while maintaining query performance at scale. Watch the session.

• “Druid on K8S at NAVER” by Jihyae Nam and EunHye Song, NAVER: Attendees learned how to set up a Druid cluster in a Kubernetes environment with a concise Helm chart, covering architecture, Helm chart details, and insights from migrating Druid to Kubernetes. Watch the session.

• “From Reaction to Action: Atlassian’s Proactive Scaling Journey” by Julien Calfayan, Atlassian: Atlassian’s proactive approach to scalability was unveiled, showcasing a new load testing architecture and the methodologies revolutionizing their scaling game. Watch the session.

• “Splunk’s Migration to Imply: Data Compaction At Scale” by Neha Yadav, Splunk: Attendees learned about Splunk’s migration from open-source Druid to Imply, the challenges of data compaction at large scale, and how Splunk and Imply collaborated to overcome these obstacles. Watch the session.

• “Revenue at Scale: Billing for Millions of Events per Second” by Kshitij Grover and Brandon Zhang, Orb: Discover how Orb uses Druid to manage billing for rapidly growing infrastructure and AI companies. Grover discussed datastore guarantees, load characteristics, and observability design around Druid’s multi-tier structure. Watch the session.

And that’s not all—the event also featured sessions from Nutanix, Strivr, DataInfra, Voltron Data, and Wave Money—plus a series of lightning talks by experts at Imply, giving attendees quick glimpses into cutting-edge topics and emerging trends in the world of Druid. 

Closing Thoughts

Druid Summit 2023 was not just an event; it was a convergence of minds, experiences, and innovations. The keynotes provided a strategic vision, while the sessions and lightning talks offered a granular understanding of Druid’s capabilities and applications. As we brought this year’s summit to a close, we hope participants left with a renewed sense of inspiration and a wealth of knowledge.

A heartfelt thank you to the Druid community and to all the speakers, organizers, and attendees who contributed to the success of Druid Summit 2023. We look forward to partnering with you on the continued growth and evolution of Druid in 2024 and beyond.

New to Druid? We’d love to hear from you! Join the Druid community on Slack to keep up with the latest news and releases, chat with other Druid users, and get answers to your real-time analytics database questions.