Designing a Datacenter-wide Distributed Shared Log

Distributed shared logs simplify the implementation and interoperation of data stores. This paper addresses a simple question: Is it feasible to build a single, datacenter-wide distributed shared log that can support all the data stores running in a datacenter? We answer in the affirmative by presenting RingWorld, a scalable log based on a ring of programmable switches that can sustain tens of billions of appends per second while maintaining low latency. We hope the design of RingWorld will propel the adoption of shared logs as a core part of datacenter infrastructure.