[DO NOT MERGE] docs: add DiskANN disk-backed index engine SEP#499
Open
swasik wants to merge 1 commit into
Open
[DO NOT MERGE] docs: add DiskANN disk-backed index engine SEP#499swasik wants to merge 1 commit into
swasik wants to merge 1 commit into
Conversation
swasik
force-pushed
the
VECTOR-702-diskann-sep
branch
from
July 2, 2026 10:01
e63f0dc to
85899f5
Compare
There was a problem hiding this comment.
Pull request overview
Adds a draft ScyllaDB Enhancement Proposal (SEP) describing a DiskANN (SSD-backed) index engine option for Vector Store, positioned as a capacity/cost-optimized alternative to the existing in-memory USearch engine.
Changes:
- Introduces a new draft SEP detailing product motivation, goals, and competitive positioning for a DiskANN-based engine.
- Documents a proposed high-level integration plan (factory selection, actor wiring, config/metrics/memory accounting).
- Outlines QA/benchmark strategy, delivery milestones, and operational considerations for an SSD-backed tier.
swasik
force-pushed
the
VECTOR-702-diskann-sep
branch
from
July 2, 2026 11:43
85899f5 to
9728040
Compare
swasik
force-pushed
the
VECTOR-702-diskann-sep
branch
from
July 2, 2026 12:15
9728040 to
b133aa0
Compare
swasik
force-pushed
the
VECTOR-702-diskann-sep
branch
from
July 2, 2026 14:59
b133aa0 to
1c0640b
Compare
ewienik
reviewed
Jul 2, 2026
ewienik
reviewed
Jul 2, 2026
ewienik
reviewed
Jul 2, 2026
ewienik
reviewed
Jul 2, 2026
ewienik
reviewed
Jul 2, 2026
ewienik
reviewed
Jul 2, 2026
ewienik
reviewed
Jul 2, 2026
Add a ScyllaDB Enhancement Proposal for integrating DiskANN (DiskANN3, SSD-backed Vamana) as an additional, per-node-selectable Vector Store index engine alongside the in-memory USearch engine. Covers motivation, internal USearch-vs-DiskANN competitive analysis, 50k/100M/1B benchmark plan, restart/durability semantics, delivery plan, and resolved design decisions.
swasik
force-pushed
the
VECTOR-702-diskann-sep
branch
from
July 2, 2026 23:16
1c0640b to
e5199b8
Compare
This file contains hidden or bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters.
Learn more about bidirectional Unicode characters
Sign up for free
to join this conversation on GitHub.
Already have an account?
Sign in to comment
Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.This suggestion is invalid because no changes were made to the code.Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is closed.Suggestions cannot be applied while viewing a subset of changes.Only one suggestion per line can be applied in a batch.Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.Applying suggestions on deleted lines is not supported.You must change the existing code in this line in order to create a valid suggestion.Outdated suggestions cannot be applied.This suggestion has been applied or marked resolved.Suggestions cannot be applied from pending reviews.Suggestions cannot be applied on multi-line comments.Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is queued to merge.Suggestion cannot be applied right now. Please check back later.
This PR is used just to make the initial review of SEP. To be moved to Confluence later.
What
Adds a ScyllaDB Enhancement Proposal (SEP) for a DiskANN (SSD-backed) index
engine in Vector Store, offered as an additional, selectable engine alongside
the existing in-memory USearch engine.
Docs-only change:
docs/dev/diskann/sep-diskann.md— the proposal.Why
Vector Store builds every ANN index fully in RAM (USearch/HNSW), so RAM is the
scaling ceiling and the primary cost driver. DiskANN moves the bulk of the index
to local NVMe SSD (keeping a PQ-compressed representation + working set in RAM),
targeting:
$/indexed-vectorand$/QPSat acceptable recall, trading a modest latency increase for a largeRAM-cost reduction.
storage-optimized nodes when higher latency is acceptable.
USearch remains the default for latency-critical, RAM-resident workloads.
Design highlights
DiskannIndexFactorybehind the existingIndexFactoryseam (the samepluggable-engine plumbing USearch uses); ingestion (CDC), routing, and the
HTTP/CQL surface are unchanged.
v0.54.0) indisk-provider mode; node-local NVMe to avoid a network hop per beam-search
step.
DiskANN3) — no periodic merges or full rebuilds.
in Cloud as a single latency-optimized vs cost-optimized deployment switch.
source, so index loss = rebuild-from-CDC.
Scope
object storage on the hot path, DistributedANN, GPU, Optane/PMem.
Notes for reviewers
[Add link]placeholders and an OpenQuestions list (PQ defaults, cache-vs-FTS RAM split, p99 target validation,
crash-consistency strategy) are intentionally left for delivery-time
resolution.
f32,i8,b1) vs DiskANN at 100M and 1B,with cost (
$/indexed-vector,$/QPS) as a first-class result.