What is an Aerospike anyway?

What’s in a name? That which we call an Aerospike, by any other word, would be so powerful…

As a career professional brander, I have an intense love for onomatology as it relates to brand names. So, many years ago, when I was interviewing for my post here at Aerospike, my first question was, “What the heck is an Aerospike, anyway?” Turns out the answer is fascinating and a perfect metaphor for our database and company. (For those steeped in branding, we’re a branded house, not a house of brands.)

Rockets, nose cones, and engines

In the aeronautical world, an "aerospike" refers to two key rocket components:

Drag-reducing aerospike: This thin, antenna-like structure on a rocket's nose cone reduces drag, allowing the rocket to travel faster and farther and carry larger payloads with increased stability. 

Aerospike engine: This advanced rocket engine maintains efficiency across varying altitudes by adjusting to changing air pressure, using less fuel at low altitudes, and remaining lightweight and reusable. The aerospike engines being developed today are lighter and reusable, which makes them much more cost-effective for space tech companies such as SpaceX to deploy.

Thoughtful symbolism 

Symbolism in branding imbues a name with deeper meaning and resonance. A powerful symbol can succinctly communicate complex ideas and emotions, creating an instant connection with the audience.

The name "Aerospike" is a prime example of effective branding through symbolism. The technical symbolism aligns seamlessly with Aerospike's identity as a high-performance database solution, emphasizing efficiency, reliability, and cutting-edge technology. The name evokes a sense of advanced engineering and innovation, reinforcing the brand’s core attributes.

Technical analogy: Aerospike and our database

A colleague highlighted the parallels with the following technical analogy of our database to that of the Aerospike rocket components: 

Real-time engine optimization. Through a series of altitude-compensating nozzles, the aerospike rocket engine is continually adjusting to perform optimally and maintain efficiency, regardless of altitude. Similarly, as the Aerospike database workload varies, it is optimized in real-time to sustain performance and stability. Workload is distributed automatically to all available nodes in a cluster. For example, if a server becomes unavailable (due to network, hardware, or infrastructure issues), Aerospike detects that node is now offline and redistributes the workload to the remaining nodes. All this happens in real-time and across data centers, including cloud, without you having to do anything.

Intelligent (database-aware) clients. Just like the aerospike rocket engine maintains its aerodynamic efficiency with changing altitude, Aerospike Smart Client^TM makes applications maintain their stability with changing conditions. The Smart Client is built into Aerospike client drivers and development libraries and is available in a variety of programming languages. This brings applications with built-in capabilities such as cluster-status sensing, efficient transaction routing and network connection pooling, and failover protection. With Aerospike, there is no need for sharding or load balancers, which makes development teams very happy.

Cluster that is self-healing. Redundant systems allow the aerospike rocket engine to operate reliably even when one system malfunctions. Similarly, the Aerospike Database is highly available. If one or more servers within a cluster go out, the overall system keeps going – DevOps teams love Aerospike’s predictable performance and reliability. Self-healing clusters also make the database easy to scale, since it is always maximizing the use of nodes.

Hybrid Memory Architecture. The aerospike rocket engine is cost-effective because it uses less fuel, where missions have the greatest need for thrust. It also requires only one stage and can be reused from one mission to the next. Compared to memory-only databases, the Aerospike Database offers a lower TCO because it can process 4x data volume with 1/5 of the data center footprint. Hybrid Memory Architecture is unique to the Aerospike Database, making sub-millisecond latency, over-million TPS data processing. Aerospike delivers high performance, where most mission-critical applications need high data processing speed and volume without adding more servers or caches, as other relational or NoSQL databases do.

The power of a brand name

Enriched with meaningful symbolism, our name, "Aerospike," is a prime example of effective branding and a powerful tool in shaping perception and fostering connections. It goes beyond mere identification and embodies our essence and aspirations.

Our name is the cornerstone of our organization’s identity. We believe our name can evoke trust, loyalty, and a sense of belonging. It helps differentiate us in this crowded marketplace and is a key asset in building lasting relationships with our customers and partners.