1.3 Databases

NFA processes huge volumes of data and uses two databases to store all the related information: MySQL and ClickHouse. The accumulated information is used by other NFA components to provide a graphical view of flow parameters.

MySQL is the most popular Open Source SQL database management system, developed, distributed, and supported by Oracle Corporation. It plays the role of NFA’s system data depository which possesses configuration, dashboard, device, and user information.

ClickHouse is a column-oriented database management system (DBMS) for the online analytical processing of queries (OLAP).

ClickHouse benefits:
• Extremely Fast scans that can be used for real-time queries.
• Real-time data ingestion
• Parallel processing for a single query
• Hardware efficient
• Scales well both vertically and horizontally

The most important ClickHouse tables are:
• flows_data1
• flows_data2
• flows_data3