TiDB Cloud FAQs

This document lists the most frequently asked questions about TiDB Cloud.

General FAQs

What is TiDB Cloud?

TiDB Cloud makes deploying, managing, and maintaining your TiDB clusters even simpler with a fully managed cloud instance that you control through an intuitive console. You are able to easily deploy on Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud to quickly build mission-critical applications.

TiDB Cloud allows developers and DBAs with little or no training to handle once-complex tasks such as infrastructure management and cluster deployment with ease, to focus on your applications, not the complexities of your database. And by scaling TiDB clusters in or out with a simple click of a button, you no longer waste costly resources because you are able to provision your databases for exactly how much and how long you need them.

What is the relationship between TiDB and TiDB Cloud?

TiDB is an open-source database and is the best option for organizations who want to run TiDB Self-Hosted in their own data centers, in a self-managed cloud environment, or in a hybrid of the two.

TiDB Cloud is a fully managed cloud Database as a Service of TiDB. It has an easy-to-use web-based management console to let you manage TiDB clusters for mission-critical production environments.

Is TiDB Cloud compatible with MySQL?

Currently, TiDB Cloud supports the majority of MySQL 5.7 and MySQL 8.0 syntax with the exception of triggers, stored procedures, and user-defined functions. For more details, see Compatibility with MySQL.

What programming languages can I use to work with TiDB Cloud?

You can use any language supported by the MySQL client or driver.

Where can I run TiDB Cloud?

TiDB Cloud is currently available on Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud.

Does TiDB Cloud support VPC peering between different cloud service providers?

No.

What versions of TiDB are supported on TiDB Cloud?

• Starting from March 5, 2024, the default TiDB version for new TiDB Dedicated clusters is v7.5.1.
• Starting from March 7, 2023, the default TiDB version for new TiDB Serverless clusters is v6.6.0.

For more information, see TiDB Cloud Release Notes.

What companies are using TiDB or TiDB Cloud in production?

TiDB is trusted by over 1500 global enterprises across a variety of industries, such as financial services, gaming, and e-commerce. Our users include Square (US), Shopee (Singapore), and China UnionPay (China). See our case studies for specific details.

What does the SLA look like?

TiDB Cloud provides 99.99% SLA. For details, see Service Level Agreement for TiDB Cloud Services.

How can I learn more about TiDB Cloud?

The best way to learn about TiDB Cloud is to follow our step-by-step tutorial. Check out the following topics to get started:

• TiDB Cloud Introduction
• Get Started
• Create a TiDB Serverless Cluster

What does XXX's Org/default project/Cluster0 refer to when deleting a cluster?

In TiDB Cloud, a cluster is uniquely identified by the combination of the organization name, project name, and cluster name. To ensure that you are deleting the intended cluster, you need to provide the fully qualified name of that cluster, such as XXX's Org/default project/Cluster0.

Architecture FAQs

There are different components in my TiDB cluster. What are TiDB, TiKV, and TiFlash nodes?

TiDB is the SQL computing layer that aggregates data from queries returned from TiKV or TiFlash stores. TiDB is horizontally scalable; increasing the number of TiDB nodes will increase the number of concurrent queries the cluster can handle.

TiKV is the transactional store used to store OLTP data. All the data in TiKV is automatically maintained in multiple replicas (three replicas by default), so TiKV has native high availability and supports automatic failover. TiKV is horizontally scalable; increasing the number of transactional stores will increase OLTP throughput.

TiFlash is the analytical storage that replicates data from the transactional store (TiKV) in real-time and supports real-time OLAP workloads. Unlike TiKV, TiFlash stores data in columns to accelerate analytical processing. TiFlash is also horizontally scalable; increasing TiFlash nodes will increase OLAP storage and computing capacity.

PD, the Placement Driver is "the brain" of the entire TiDB cluster, as it stores the metadata of the cluster. It sends data scheduling commands to specific TiKV nodes according to the data distribution state reported by TiKV nodes in real-time. On TiDB Cloud, PD of each cluster is managed by PingCAP and you can not see or maintain it.

How does TiDB replicate data between the TiKV nodes?

TiKV divides the key-value space into key ranges, and each key range is treated as a "Region". In TiKV, data is distributed among all nodes in a cluster and uses the Region as the basic unit. PD is responsible for spreading (scheduling) Regions as evenly as possible across all nodes in a cluster.

TiDB uses the Raft consensus algorithm to replicate data by Regions. Multiple replicas of a Region stored in different nodes form a Raft Group.

Each data change is recorded as a Raft log. Through Raft log replication, data is safely and reliably replicated to multiple nodes of the Raft Group.

High availability FAQ

How does TiDB Cloud ensure high availability?

TiDB uses the Raft consensus algorithm to ensure that data is highly available and safely replicated throughout storage in Raft Groups. Data is redundantly copied between TiKV nodes and placed in different Availability Zones to protect against machine or data center failure. With automatic failover, TiDB ensures that your service is always on.

As a Software as a Service (SaaS) provider, we take data security seriously. We have established strict information security policies and procedures required by the Service Organization Control (SOC) 2 Type 1 compliance. This ensures that your data is secure, available, and confidential.

Migration FAQ

Is there an easy migration path from another RDBMS to TiDB Cloud?

TiDB is highly compatible with MySQL. You can migrate data from any MySQL-compatible databases to TiDB smoothly, whether the data is from a self-hosted MySQL instance or RDS service provided by the public cloud. For more information, see Migrate MySQL-Compatible Databases to TiDB Cloud Using Data Migration.

Backup and restore FAQ

Does TiDB Cloud support incremental backups?

No. If you need to restore data to any point in time within the cluster's backup retention, you can use PITR (Point-in-time Recovery). For more information, see Use PITR in a TiDB Dedicated cluster or Use PITR in a TiDB Serverless cluster.

HTAP FAQs

How do I make use of TiDB Cloud's HTAP capabilities?

Traditionally, there are two types of databases: Online Transactional Processing (OLTP) databases and Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) databases. OLTP and OLAP requests are often processed in different and isolated databases. With this traditional architecture, migrating data from an OLTP database to a data warehouse or data lake for OLAP is a long and error-prone process.

As a Hybrid Transactional Analytical Processing (HTAP) database, TiDB Cloud helps you simplify your system architecture, reduce maintenance complexity, and support real-time analytics on transactional data by automatically replicating data reliably between the OLTP (TiKV) store and OLAP (TiFlash) store. Typical HTAP use cases are user personalization, AI recommendation, fraud detection, business intelligence, and real-time reporting.

For further HTAP scenarios, refer to How We Build an HTAP Database That Simplifies Your Data Platform.

Can I import my data directly to TiFlash?

No. When you import data to TiDB Cloud, the data is imported to TiKV. After the import is complete, you can use SQL statements to specify which tables to be replicated to TiFlash. Then, TiDB will create the replicas of the specified tables in TiFlash accordingly. For more information, see Create TiFlash Replicas.

Can I export TiFlash data in the CSV format?

No. TiFlash data cannot be exported.

Security FAQs

Is TiDB Cloud secure?

In TiDB Cloud, all data at rest is encrypted, and all network traffic is encrypted using Transport Layer Security (TLS).

• Encryption of data at rest is automated using encrypted storage volumes.
• Encryption of data in transit between your client and your cluster is automated using TiDB Cloud web server TLS and TiDB cluster TLS.

How does TiDB Cloud encrypt my business data?

TiDB Cloud uses storage volume encryption by default for your business data at rest, including your database data and backup data. TiDB Cloud requires TLS encryption for data in transit, and also requires component-level TLS encryption for data in your database cluster between TiDB, PD, TiKV, and TiFlash.

To get more specific information about business data encryption in TiDB Cloud, contact TiDB Cloud Support.

What versions of TLS does TiDB Cloud support?

TiDB Cloud supports TLS 1.2 or TLS 1.3.

Can I run TiDB Cloud in my VPC?

No. TiDB Cloud is Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) and runs only in the TiDB Cloud VPC. As a cloud computing managed service, TiDB Cloud provides access to a database without requiring the setup of physical hardware and the installation of software.

Is my TiDB cluster secure?

In TiDB Cloud, you can use either a TiDB Dedicated cluster or a TiDB Serverless cluster according to your needs.

For TiDB Dedicated clusters, TiDB Cloud ensures cluster security with the following measures:

• Creates independent sub-accounts and VPCs for each cluster.
• Sets up firewall rules to isolate external connections.
• Creates server-side TLS certificates and component-level TLS certificates for each cluster to encrypt cluster data in transit.
• Provide IP access rules for each cluster to ensure that only allowed source IP addresses can access your cluster.

For TiDB Serverless clusters, TiDB Cloud ensures cluster security with the following measures:

• Creates independent sub-accounts for each cluster.
• Sets up firewall rules to isolate external connections.
• Provides cluster server TLS certificates to encrypt cluster data in transit.

How do I connect to my database in a TiDB cluster?

• TiDB Dedicated
• TiDB Serverless

Support FAQ

What support is available for customers?

TiDB Cloud is supported by the same team behind TiDB, which has run mission-critical use cases for over 1500 global enterprises across industries including financial services, e-commerce, enterprise applications, and gaming. TiDB Cloud offers a free basic support plan for each user and you can upgrade to a paid plan for extended services. For more information, see TiDB Cloud Support.