In this article, we will compare two data storage solutions: ReductStore and Minio. Both offer on-premise blob storage, but they approach it differently. Minio provides traditional S3-like blob storage, while ReductStore is a time series database designed to store a history of blob data. We will focus on their application in scenarios that require storage and access to a history of unstructured data. This includes images from a computer vision camera, vibration sensor data, or binary packages common in industrial data.

Handling Historical Data​

S3-like blob storage is commonly used to store data of different formats and sizes in the cloud or internal storage. It can also accommodate historical data as a series of blobs. A simple approach is to create a folder for each data source and save objects with timestamps in their names:

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In this guide, we will explore the process of storing Kafka messages that contain unstructured data into a time series database.

Apache Kafka is a distributed streaming platform capable of handling high throughput of data, while ReductStore is a databases for unstructured data optimized for storing and querying along time.

ReductStore allows to easily setup a data sink to store blob data for applications that need precise time-based querying or a robust system optimized for edge computing that can handle quotas and retention policies.

This guide builds upon an existing tutorial which provides detailed steps for integrating a simple architecture with these systems. To get started, revisit "Easy Guide to Integrating Kafka: Practical Solutions for Managing Blob Data" if you need help setting up the initial infrastructure.

You can also find the code for this tutorial in the kafka_to_reduct demo on GitHub.

We are pleased to announce the release of the latest minor version of ReductStore, 1.8.0. ReductStore is a time series database designed for storing and managing large amounts of blob data.

To download the latest released version, please visit our Download Page.

What's New in ReductStore v1.8.0​

In this release, we're introducing a crucial feature for any database - data replication. Now, you can create a server-side task that "subscribes" to new records written to a bucket and forwards them to another bucket. This bucket can be located on the same instance or a remote one. Since all databases implement replication differently based on their specializations, let's examine how ReductStore tackles this.