The Ultimate Guide to High Availability with MariaDB
This is a read-only copy of the MariaDB Knowledgebase generated on 2025-05-22. For the latest, interactive version please visit https://mariadb.com/kb/.

Spider Storage Engine Introduction

Contents

  1. Overview
  2. Benefits
  3. Available Platforms
  4. Topologies
  5. Deployment Instructions
  6. Term Definitions
  7. Resources
    1. ES Information Schema Reference
    2. ES Plugin Reference
    3. ES SQL Statement Reference
    4. ES System Table Reference

Overview

MariaDB Enterprise Spider is a storage engine for MariaDB Enterprise Server that supports table federation, table sharding, and ODBC data sources.

MariaDB Enterprise Spider creates "virtual" Spider Tables on a Spider Node that clients and applications can query as if they were regular tables. For Federated Spider Tables and Sharded Spider Tables, the Enterprise Spider storage engine uses a MariaDB foreign data wrapper to query a Data Table on one or more Data Nodes. For ODBC Spider Tables, the Enterprise Spider storage engine uses an ODBC foreign data wrapper to query an ODBC Data Source.

Benefits

MariaDB Enterprise Spider:

  • Supports a MariaDB foreign data wrapper. The MariaDB foreign data wrapper can be used to replace the older Federated and FederatedX storage engines.
  • Supports an ODBC foreign data wrapper in MariaDB Enterprise Server 10.5 and later. ODBC foreign data wrapper is beta maturity.

The maturity can be confirmed by querying the information_schema.SPIDER_WRAPPER_PROTOCOLS table.

ES VersionsSpider Version
ES 10.5MariaDB Enterprise Spider 3.4

Available Platforms

  • AlmaLinux 8 (x86_64, ARM64)
  • AlmaLinux 9 (x86_64, ARM64)
  • CentOS Linux 7 (x86_64)
  • CentOS Linux 8 (x86_64, ARM64)
  • Debian 9 (x86_64, ARM64)
  • Debian 10 (x86_64, ARM64)
  • Debian 11 (x86_64, ARM64)
  • Debian 12 (x86_64, ARM64)
  • Microsoft Windows (x86_64)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (x86_64)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (x86_64, ARM64)
  • Red Hat UBI 8 (x86_64, ARM64)
  • Rocky Linux 8 (x86_64, packages, Red, Linux, Hat, Enterprise, ARM64, 8)
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 (x86_64, ARM64)
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 (x86_64, ARM64)
  • Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (x86_64, ARM64)
  • Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (x86_64, ARM64)
  • Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (x86_64, ARM64)
  • Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (x86_64, ARM64)

Topologies

MariaDB Enterprise Spider supports multiple topologies. Several options are described below. MariaDB Enterprise Spider can be deployed in other topologies. The topologies on this page are representative of basic product capabilities.

For additional information, choose an Enterprise Spider topology:

TopologyDiagramUse Cases
Spider Federatedspider-federatedRead from and write to tables on remote ES nodes
Migrate tables from remote ES node
Query tables on remote ES node
JOIN local tables with tables on remote ES node
Spider Shardedspider-shardedShard tables for horizontal scalability
Consolidate tables from remote ES nodes into one "virtual" table
Partition a large table across multiple remote ES nodes
Use regular partitioning syntax to define shards
Spider ODBCspider-federated-odbcRead from and write to tables on ODBC Data Sources
Migrate data from an ODBC Data Source
Query data from an ODBC Data Source
JOIN local tables with data from an ODBC Data Source
ES 10.5+

Deployment Instructions

To deploy the Enterprise Spider storage engine with MariaDB Enterprise Server, choose an Enterprise Spider topology and an ES version:

TopologyDiagramUse Cases
Enterprise Server 10.5
Enterprise Server 10.6
Enterprise Server 11.4		spider-federated*Read from and write to tables on remote ES nodes*
Spider Node uses Spider storage engine for Federated Spider Tables
Federated Spider Table is a "virtual" table
Spider uses MariaDB foreign data wrapper to query Data Table on Data Node
Data Node uses non-Spider storage engine for Data Tables
Supports transactions,
Enterprise Spider
Enterprise Server 10.5
Enterprise Server 10.6
Enterprise Server 11.4		spider-sharded*Shard tables for horizontal scalability*
Spider Node uses Spider storage engine for Sharded Spider Tables
Sharded Spider Table is a partitioned "virtual" table
Spider uses MariaDB foreign data wrapper to query Data Tables on Data Nodes for each partition
Data Node uses non-Spider storage engine for Data Tables
Supports transactions
Enterprise Spider

Term Definitions

TermDefinition
Data NodeA Data Node is a MariaDB Enterprise Server node that contains one or more Data Tables.
Data TableA Data Table stores data for a Spider Table. When a Spider Table is queried, the Enterprise Spider storage engine uses the MariaDB foreign data wrapper to read from and write to the Data Table on a Data Node. The Data Table must be created on the Data Node with the same structure as the Spider Table. The Data Table must use a non-Spider storage engine, such as InnoDB or ColumnStore.
ODBC Data SourceAn ODBC Data Source relies on an ODBC Driver and an ODBC Driver Manager to query an external data source.
ODBC DriverAn ODBC Driver is a library that integrates with a ODBC Driver Manager to query an external data source.
ODBC Driver ManagerAn ODBC Driver Manager allows applications to use ODBC Drivers.
Spider NodeA Spider Node is a MariaDB Enterprise Server node that contains one or more Spider Tables.
Spider TableA Spider Table is a virtual table that does not store data. When a Spider Table is queried, the Enterprise Spider storage engine uses foreign data wrappers to read from and write to Data Tables on Data Nodes or ODBC Data Sources.

Resources

ES Information Schema Reference

ES Plugin Reference

ES SQL Statement Reference

ES System Table Reference

  • spider_link_failed_log
  • spider_link_mon_servers
  • spider_table_crd
  • spider_table_position_for_recovery
  • spider_tables
  • spider_table_sts
  • spider_xa_failed_log
  • spider_xa_member
  • spider_xa
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