Rebuilding InfluxDB with Rust with Andrew Lamb

Rustacean Station

Allen Wyma talks with Andrew Lamb about InfluxDB’s rewrite. InfluxDB is an open-source time series database.

As a Staff Engineer at InfluxData, he works on InfluxDB 3.0, a new time series database written in Rust, focusing on query processing and the Apache Arrow DataFusion and Apache Arrow ecosystems. In that capacity, he is a member and past chair of the Apache Arrow PMC and actively contributes to Apache Arrow DataFusion and the Apache Rust implementation query engine.

Andrew was a professional C/C++ programmer for 10 years before switching to Rust. His experience ranges from startups to large multinational corporations and distributed open source projects, and has paid leadership dues as an architect and manager/VP. He holds an SB and MEng from MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

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Timestamps

• [@0:52] - Meet Andrew Lamb, Staff Engineer at InfluxData, working on InfluxDB IOx
• [@2:57] - Transitioning from C++ to Rust: Andrew’s story
• [@11:24] - InfluxDB rewrite and its use cases
• [@22:13] - Compatibility of InfluxDB
• [@26:58] - Downsides of using Rust and other languages
• [@32:40] - Plans for the 3.0 alpha/beta release and different versions
• [@34:54] - Unique use of the async runtime Tokio
• [@55:28] - Rust as a tool for recruitment
• [@58:16] - Closing discussion

Other links

• Andrew’s X Account
• Using Rustlang’s Async Tokio Runtime for CPU-Bound Tasks
• Using the FDAP Architecture to build InfluxDB 3.0
• RustASIA Conf 2025

Credits

Intro Theme: Aerocity

Audio Editing: Plangora

Hosting Infrastructure: Jon Gjengset

Show Notes: Plangora

Hosts: Allen Wyma