Welcome to the Data Crafters Lab A step-by-step guide to using Takara DS1 embeddings with CockroachDB's native vector store and C-SPANN index - Takara DS1 is a hosted text embedding model designed for low-latency, low-cost vector generation. It returns 512-dimensional L2-normalised vectors and is exposed both as a public HTTPS endpoint and as an AWS SageMaker model. When paired with CockroachDB v25.2+, which ships a native VECTOR column type and a distributed approximate-nearest-neighbour... Mon, 15 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0200 /2026-06-15-takara-integration-guide/ /2026-06-15-takara-integration-guide/ How DBOS turns your database into a workflow engine, and why CockroachDB removes the scalability ceiling - Modern AI applications are no longer single-shot inference calls. They are long-running agents that plan, act, observe, and retry across time. An AI agent loop that retrieves context from a vector store, calls an LLM, writes results to a database, waits for human approval, and then triggers downstream actions can... Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 +0200 /2026-05-28-dbos-cockroachdb/ /2026-05-28-dbos-cockroachdb/ A Step-By-Step Guide to Run Durable Workflow Orchestration with Temporal and CockroachDB - Modern AI applications are no longer single-shot inference calls. They are long-running agents that plan, act, observe, and retry across time. An AI agent loop that retrieves context from a vector store, calls an LLM, writes results to a database, waits for human approval, and then triggers downstream actions can... Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0200 /2026-04-24-temporal-cockroachdb/ /2026-04-24-temporal-cockroachdb/ A step-by-step guide to deploying Teleport Enterprise with CockroachDB as a globally distributed, strongly consistent access control backend - Teleport is a certificate authority and identity-aware access proxy that implements protocols such as SSH, RDP, HTTPS, Kubernetes API, and a variety of SQL and NoSQL database protocols. It is completely transparent to client-side tools and designed to work with everything in today’s DevOps ecosystem. When paired with CockroachDB as... Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0200 /2026-04-15-teleport-integration-guide/ /2026-04-15-teleport-integration-guide/ How CockroachDB becomes agent-ready with MCP servers, CLI tools, and agent skills - The way AI systems interact with databases is undergoing a fundamental shift. For decades, databases served as passive backends, waiting for application code to issue queries. Today, AI agents actively interrogate, modify, and operate databases with minimal human intervention. This requires a new kind of infrastructure: one that is structured,... Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0100 /2026-03-25-cockroachdb-ai-mcp/ /2026-03-25-cockroachdb-ai-mcp/ From Naive RAG to Agentic RAG: a complete tutorial using LangChain, Memori, GCP Vertex AI, and Amazon Bedrock - Large Language Models (LLMs) are transforming how we build intelligent applications, but they carry a fundamental limitation: their knowledge is frozen at training time. Ask a model about your internal documentation, your product catalogue, or last week’s incident report and it will either refuse or hallucinate a plausible-sounding answer. Retrieval-Augmented... Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0100 /2026-02-20-cockroachdb-ai-rag/ /2026-02-20-cockroachdb-ai-rag/ How vector indexing enables low-latency, intelligent threat response at global scale - In the arms race against financial fraud, milliseconds matter. For any given transaction, fraud detection systems must decide whether or not it’s fraudulent and immediately act accordingly. Failing to definitively address fraud leads to significant losses, harms organizations’ brand image, tarnishes their reputation, and inevitably repels customers. The incidence of... Wed, 28 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0100 /2026-01-28-cockroachdb-ai-fraud/ /2026-01-28-cockroachdb-ai-fraud/ How CockroachDB powers AuthZed's SpiceDB as a strongly consistent, globally distributed authorization backend - Authorization answers the question: What can a user do once they’ve successfully logged in? Logging into a system doesn’t mean unrestricted access. Instead, authorization ensures that users can only access what’s necessary for their role. Traditional role-based access systems (RBAC) were once baked directly into the application layer. Fortunately, we... Tue, 06 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0100 /2026-01-06-authzed-integration-guide/ /2026-01-06-authzed-integration-guide/ Building personalized recommendation systems with CockroachDB's native vector capabilities - Recommendation engines have gained immense importance in today’s digital landscape. As global competition intensifies, businesses frequently leverage recommendation systems to enhance user experiences, drive engagement, and boost revenue. In the e-commerce industry, recommendation engines enable key functions such as personalized product recommendations, cross-selling, and upselling. By understanding buyers’ preferences and... Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0100 /2025-12-27-cockroachdb-ai-recommendation/ /2025-12-27-cockroachdb-ai-recommendation/ How we built fast, fresh vector indexing at scale in CockroachDB - In a past life, I worked on an app that let users upload and share photos with friends and family. I’m amazed at how far technology has progressed since that time. It feels like magic that AI can “look” at a set of photos and “know” that they were taken... Sun, 23 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0100 /2025-11-23-cockroachdb-ai-spann/ /2025-11-23-cockroachdb-ai-spann/ Information today is generated and consumed in unprecedented magnitudes. With every click, swipe, and transaction, massive amounts of data are collected, waiting to be harnessed for insights, decision-making, and innovation. Today, more than 80% of the data that organizations generate is unstructured – and the amount of this data type... Sun, 05 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 /2025-10-05-cockroachdb-ai-intro/ /2025-10-05-cockroachdb-ai-intro/ A Complete Guide - Today’s SaaS products face twin demands: the digital identity layer must be seamless and enterprise-grade, and the data layer must scale globally while remaining reliably consistent. Meanwhile, customers expect Single Sign-On (SSO), multi-tenanted onboarding, and seamless fine-grained access control, while engineering teams must ensure data isolation, global performance, and maintain... Sun, 14 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0200 /2025-09-14-iam-keycloak-phase-two-cockroachdb/ /2025-09-14-iam-keycloak-phase-two-cockroachdb/ Managing Permissions and Policy in a Distributed World - In the early years of computing, “consistency” had a clear home: the database. If your transactions were atomic and your indexes balanced, you could sleep at night knowing your system was sound. But the world changed. Data escaped the monolith, spreading into microservices, caches, event buses, analytics pipelines, and authorization... Mon, 04 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0200 /2025-08-04-iam-database-permissions-policy/ /2025-08-04-iam-database-permissions-policy/ How a global payments leader achieved 99.999% availability for infrastructure access - In large-scale, security-sensitive enterprises, particularly in finance, access infrastructure isn’t just another service: it’s a critical foundation. Access must be secure, observable, and compliant. Most importantly, it must always be available. When a global payments provider set out to standardize Teleport as its internal access platform, it had to meet... Thu, 10 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0200 /2025-07-10-iam-teleport-cockroachdb/ /2025-07-10-iam-teleport-cockroachdb/ How OpenAI built a resilient, multi-region CIAM platform - As organizations scale globally and users expect seamless, real-time access from anywhere in the world, traditional identity and access management (IAM) systems often become a bottleneck. These legacy solutions, typically built on monolithic, region-bound architectures, struggle to provide the resilience, performance, and flexibility required in distributed, cloud-native environments. They often... Thu, 12 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0200 /2025-06-12-iam-openai-ory-cockroachdb/ /2025-06-12-iam-openai-ory-cockroachdb/ A Comprehensive Guide - Identity and Access Management (IAM) is the beating heart of modern application security. From the moment a user lands on a login screen to the precise instant a permission check is made against a backend API, IAM underpins every access decision, ensuring the right entities interact with the right resources... Fri, 23 May 2025 00:00:00 +0200 /2025-05-23-iam-guide/ /2025-05-23-iam-guide/ A step-by-step guide to deploying Ory Hydra, Kratos, and Keto with CockroachDB - Ory is an open-source identity and access management (IAM) platform providing modular, cloud-native components for authentication and authorization in distributed systems. When paired with CockroachDB as its persistent data store, you get a fully scalable, resilient IAM foundation capable of operating across regions without complex data migrations or single points... Tue, 22 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0200 /2025-04-22-ory-integration-guide/ /2025-04-22-ory-integration-guide/ Managing Change - Transitioning from legacy mainframe systems to distributed databases marks a monumental shift for any organization. While the promise of scalability, cost-efficiency, and enhanced performance is compelling, the migration process itself presents significant challenges. Managing change and mitigating risks are critical components of ensuring a seamless transition. Without proper planning, the... Wed, 05 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0100 /2025-02-05-mainframe-to-distributed-sql-part-6/ /2025-02-05-mainframe-to-distributed-sql-part-6/ Transitioning to a Distributed Architecture - As businesses increasingly demand scalability, resilience, and flexibility, transitioning from traditional centralized systems to distributed architectures has become a critical strategic move. Distributed architectures offer unparalleled advantages, including the ability to handle massive workloads, ensure high availability, and support seamless global operations. However, making this transition requires thoughtful planning, robust... Thu, 23 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0100 /2025-01-23-mainframe-to-distributed-sql-part-5/ /2025-01-23-mainframe-to-distributed-sql-part-5/ Planning Your Data Modernization Strategy - Legacy mainframe systems have long been the backbone of critical finance, healthcare, and government operations. However, as technology evolves, these aging systems often become costly to maintain, challenging to integrate with modern applications, and inefficient in meeting today’s digital demands. Migrating mainframe databases and applications to modern platforms is increasingly... Mon, 09 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0100 /2024-12-09-mainframe-to-distributed-sql-part-4/ /2024-12-09-mainframe-to-distributed-sql-part-4/