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Spice v0.16-alpha (July 22, 2024)

· 7 min read
Luke Kim
Luke Kim
Founder and CEO of Spice AI

The v0.16-alpha release is the first candidate release for the beta milestone on a path to finalizing the v1.0 developer and user experience. Upgraders should be aware of several breaking changes designed to improve the Secrets configuration experience and to make authoring spicepod.yml files more consistent. See the [Breaking Changes](#Breaking Changes) section below for details. Additionally, the Spice Java SDK was released, providing Java developers a simple but powerful native experience to query Spice.

Highlights in v0.16-alpha​

secrets:
  - from: env
    name: env
  - from: aws_secrets_manager:my_secret_name
    name: aws_secret

Secrets managed by configured Secret Stores can be referenced in component params using the syntax ${<store_name>:<key>}. E.g.

datasets:
  - from: postgres:my_table
    name: my_table
    params:
      pg_host: localhost
      pg_port: 5432
      pg_pass: ${ env:MY_PG_PASS }

  • Java Client SDK: The Spice Java SDK has been released for JDK 17 or greater.

  • Federated SQL Query: Significant stability and reliability improvements have been made to federated SQL query support in most data connectors.

  • ODBC Data Connector: Providing a specific SQL dialect to query ODBC data sources is now supported using the sql_dialect param. For example, when querying Databricks using ODBC, the databricks dialect can be specified to ensure compatibility. Read the ODBC Data Connector documentation for more details.

Breaking Changes​

  • Secret Stores: Secret Stores support has been overhauled including required changes to spicepod.yml schema. File based secrets stored in the ~/.spice/auth file are no longer supported. See Secret Stores Documentation for full reference.

To upgrade Secret Stores, rename any parameters ending in _key to remove the _key suffix and specify a secret inline via the secret replacement syntax (${<secret_store>:<key>}):

datasets:
  - from: postgres:my_table
    name: my_table
    params:
      pg_host: localhost
      pg_port: 5432
      pg_pass_key: my_pg_pass

to:

datasets:
  - from: postgres:my_table
    name: my_table
    params:
      pg_host: localhost
      pg_port: 5432
      pg_pass: ${secrets:my_pg_pass}

And ensure the MY_PG_PASS environment variable is set.

  • Datasets: The default value of time_format has changed from unix_seconds to timestamp.

To upgrade:

datasets:
  - from:
    name: my_dataset
    # Explicitly define format when not specified.
    time_format: unix_seconds
  • HTTP Port: The default HTTP port has changed from port 3000 to port 8090 to avoid conflicting with frontend apps which typically use the 3000 range. If an SDK is used, upgrade it at the same time as the runtime.

To upgrade and continue using port 3000, run spiced with the --http command line argument:

# Using Dockerfile or spiced directly
spiced --http 127.0.0.1:3000
  • HTTP Metrics Port: The default HTTP Metrics port has changed from port 9000 to 9090 to avoid conflicting with other metrics protocols which typically use port 9000.

To upgrade and continue using port 9000, run spiced with the metrics command line argument:

# Using Dockerfile or spiced directly
spiced --metrics 127.0.0.1:9000

To upgrade, change:

json_path: my.json.path

To:

json_pointer: /my/json/pointer
  • Data Connector Configuration: Consistent connector name prefixing has been applied to connector specific params parameters. Prefixed parameter names helps ensure parameters do not collide.

For example, the Databricks data connector specific params are now prefixed with databricks:

datasets:
  - from: databricks:spiceai.datasets.my_awesome_table # A reference to a table in the Databricks unity catalog
    name: my_delta_lake_table
    params:
      mode: spark_connect
      endpoint: dbc-a1b2345c-d6e7.cloud.databricks.com
      token: MY_TOKEN

To upgrade:

datasets:
  # Example for Spark Connect
  - from: databricks:spiceai.datasets.my_awesome_table # A reference to a table in the Databricks unity catalog
    name: my_delta_lake_table
    params:
      mode: spark_connect
      databricks_endpoint: dbc-a1b2345c-d6e7.cloud.databricks.com # Now prefixed with databricks
      databricks_token: ${secrets:my_token} # Now prefixed with databricks

Refer to the Data Connector documentation for parameter naming changes in this release.

Clickhouse Data Connector: The clickhouse_connection_timeout parameter has been renamed to connection_timeout as it applies to the client and is not Clickhouse configuration itself.

To upgrade, change:

clickhouse_connection_timeout: time

To:

connection_timeout: time

Contributors​

  • @y-f-u
  • @phillipleblanc
  • @ewgenius
  • @github-actions
  • @sgrebnov
  • @lukekim
  • @digadeesh
  • @peasee
  • @Sevenannn

What's Changed​

Dependencies​

No major dependency updates.

Commits​

Full Changelog: https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/compare/v0.15.2-alpha...v0.16.0-alpha

Resources​

Community​

Spice.ai started with the vision to make AI easy for developers. We are building Spice.ai in the open and with the community. Reach out on Discord or by email to get involved.

Spice v0.15.2-alpha (July 15, 2024)

· 4 min read
Luke Kim
Luke Kim
Founder and CEO of Spice AI

The v0.15.2-alpha minor release focuses on enhancing stability, performance, and introduces Catalog Providers for streamlined access to Data Catalog tables. Unity Catalog, Databricks Unity Catalog, and the Spice.ai Cloud Platform Catalog are supported in v0.15.2-alpha. The reliability of federated query push-down has also been improved for the MySQL, PostgreSQL, ODBC, S3, Databricks, and Spice.ai Cloud Platform data connectors.

Highlights in v0.15.2-alpha​

Catalog Providers: Catalog Providers streamline access to Data Catalog tables. Initial catalog providers supported are Databricks Unity Catalog, Unity Catalog and Spice.ai Cloud Platform Catalog.

For example, to configure Spice to connect to tpch tables in the Spice.ai Cloud Platform Catalog use the new catalogs: section in the spicepod.yml:

catalogs:
  - name: spiceai
    from: spiceai
    include:
      - tpch.*
sql> show tables
+---------------+--------------+---------------+------------+
| table_catalog | table_schema | table_name    | table_type |
+---------------+--------------+---------------+------------+
| spiceai       | tpch         | region        | BASE TABLE |
| spiceai       | tpch         | part          | BASE TABLE |
| spiceai       | tpch         | customer      | BASE TABLE |
| spiceai       | tpch         | lineitem      | BASE TABLE |
| spiceai       | tpch         | partsupp      | BASE TABLE |
| spiceai       | tpch         | supplier      | BASE TABLE |
| spiceai       | tpch         | nation        | BASE TABLE |
| spiceai       | tpch         | orders        | BASE TABLE |
| spice         | runtime      | query_history | BASE TABLE |
+---------------+--------------+---------------+------------+

Time: 0.001866958 seconds. 9 rows.

ODBC Data Connector Push-Down: The ODBC Data Connector now supports query push-down for joins, improving performance for joined datasets configured with the same odbc_connection_string.

Improved Spicepod Validation Improved spicepod.yml validation has been added, including warnings when loading resources with duplicate names (datasets, views, models, embeddings).

Breaking Changes​

None.

Contributors​

  • @phillipleblanc
  • @peasee
  • @y-f-u
  • @ewgenius
  • @Sevenannn
  • @sgrebnov
  • @lukekim

What's Changed​

Dependencies​

Commits​

Full Changelog: https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/compare/v0.15.1-alpha...v0.15.2-alpha

Resources​

Community​

Spice.ai started with the vision to make AI easy for developers. We are building Spice.ai in the open and with the community. Reach out on Discord or by email to get involved.

Spice v0.15.1-alpha (July 8, 2024)

· 4 min read
Luke Kim
Luke Kim
Founder and CEO of Spice AI

The v0.15.1-alpha minor release focuses on enhancing stability, performance, and usability. Memory usage has been significantly improved for the postgres and duckdb acceleration engines which now use stream processing. A new Delta Lake Data Connector has been added, sharing a delta-kernel-rs based implementation with the Databricks Data Connector supporting deletion vectors.

Highlights​

Improved memory usage for PostgreSQL and DuckDB acceleration engines: Large dataset acceleration with PostgreSQL and DuckDB engines has reduced memory consumption by streaming data directly to the accelerated table as it is read from the source.

Delta Lake Data Connector: A new Delta Lake Data Connector has been added for using Delta Lake outside of Databricks.

ODBC Data Connector Streaming: The ODBC Data Connector now streams results, reducing memory usage, and improving performance.

GraphQL Object Unnesting: The GraphQL Data Connector can automatically unnest objects from GraphQL queries using the unnest_depth parameter.

Breaking Changes​

None.

Contributors​

What's Changed​

Dependencies​

The MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite and DuckDB DataFusion TableProviders developed by Spice AI have been donated to the datafusion-contrib/datafusion-table-providers community repository.

From the v0.15.1-alpha release, a new dependency is taken on datafusion-contrib/datafusion-table-providers

Commits​

Full Changelog: https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/compare/v0.15.0-alpha...v0.15.1-alpha

Resources​

Community​

Spice.ai started with the vision to make AI easy for developers. We are building Spice.ai in the open and with the community. Reach out on Discord or by email to get involved.

Spice v0.15-alpha (July 1, 2024)

· 4 min read
Luke Kim
Luke Kim
Founder and CEO of Spice AI

The v0.15-alpha release introduces support for streaming databases changes with Change Data Capture (CDC) into accelerated tables via a new Debezium connector, configurable retry logic for data refresh, and the release of a new C# SDK to build with Spice in Dotnet.

Highlights in v0.15-alpha​

  • Debezium data connector with Change Data Capture (CDC): Sync accelerated datasets with Debezium data sources over Kafka in real-time.

  • Data Refresh Retries: By default, accelerated datasets attempt to retry data refreshes on transient errors. This behavior can be configured using refresh_retry_enabled and refresh_retry_max_attempts.

  • C# Client SDK: A new C# Client SDK has been released for developing applications in Dotnet.

Debezium data connector with Change Data Capture (CDC)​

Integrating Debezium CDC is straightforward. Get started with the Debezium CDC Sample, read more about CDC in Spice, and read the Debezium data connector documentation.

Example Spicepod using Debezium CDC:

datasets:
  - from: debezium:cdc.public.customer_addresses
    name: customer_addresses_cdc
    params:
      debezium_transport: kafka
      debezium_message_format: json
      kafka_bootstrap_servers: localhost:19092
    acceleration:
      enabled: true
      engine: duckdb
      mode: file
      refresh_mode: changes

Data Refresh Retries​

Example Spicepod configuration limiting refresh retries to a maximum of 10 attempts:

datasets:
  - from: eth.blocks
    name: blocks
    acceleration:
      refresh_retry_enabled: true
      refresh_retry_max_attempts: 10
      refresh_check_interval: 30s

Breaking Changes​

None.

New Contributors​

Contributors​

What's Changed​

Dependencies​

No major dependency updates.

Commits​

Full Changelog: https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/compare/v0.14.1-alpha...v0.15.0-alpha

Resources​

Community​

Spice.ai started with the vision to make AI easy for developers. We are building Spice.ai in the open and with the community. Reach out on Discord or by email to get involved.

Spice v0.14.1-alpha (June 24, 2024)

· 4 min read
Luke Kim
Luke Kim
Founder and CEO of Spice AI

The v0.14.1-alpha release is focused on quality, stability, and type support with improvements in PostgreSQL, DuckDB, and GraphQL data connectors.

Highlights​

  • PostgreSQL acceleration and data connector: Support for Composite Types and UUID data types.
  • DuckDB acceleration and data connector: Support for LargeUTF8 and DuckDB functions.
  • GraphQL data connector: Improved error handling on invalid query syntax.
  • Refresh SQL: Improved stability when overwriting STRUCT data types.

Breaking Changes​

None.

New Contributors​

Contributors​

  • @lukekim
  • @y-f-u
  • @ewgenius
  • @phillipleblanc
  • @Jeadie
  • @sgrebnov
  • @gloomweaver
  • @phungleson
  • @peasee
  • @digadeesh

What's Changed​

Dependencies​

No major dependency updates.

Commits​

Full Changelog: https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/compare/v0.14.0-alpha...v0.14.1-alpha

Resources​

Community​

Spice.ai started with the vision to make AI easy for developers. We are building Spice.ai in the open and with the community. Reach out on Discord or by email to get involved.