Relational Database
A relational database organizes data into tables made of rows and columns, with defined relationships between tables, and is queried using SQL. It is the most established database model and the backbone of most transactional applications.
The relational model and its sweet spot
The relational model represents data as tables that relate to one another through keys. It enforces structure through a schema and uses SQL for queries. Decades of development have made relational databases like Postgres and MySQL reliable, well understood, and excellent at their job.
That job is mostly transactional: storing and updating individual records with strong consistency, the OLTP workload. Relational databases typically store data row by row, which is ideal for fetching and updating whole records but less ideal for large analytical scans over a few columns.
This is why heavy analytics often moves to a separate columnar, analytical system rather than running on the production relational database.
Arc is a high-performance columnar database. Open Parquet on storage you own, single Go binary, production-ready in 30 seconds.