The Blog Year in Review: Top 10 for 2023

With only a few days left in 2023 (who else can’t believe it?), we have been taking some time to look back on what an amazing year it’s been. There have been so many highlights. Whether it’s been the many awards, conferences, or meeting so many of you, we are eternally grateful! 

The biggest part of MinIO is our community, so naturally we’ve been paying close attention to what you’ve all been loving. Here is a breakdown of our top ten articles of 2023 starting with #10 and working our way up to first place. 

#10 - MinIO as ElasticSearch Frozen Tier

We kick off our countdown by combining MinIO and ElasticSearch to make troubleshooting and log analysis faster and easier. By leveraging MinIO as the frozen tier backend you have the ability to be cloud agnostic in your deployments. AJ hooks you up with all you need to know. (BTW: You’ll see his name pop up on this list time and time again. Go AJ.) 

#9 - More MinIO Data Options - The MinIO FTP/SFTP Server

We’ve seen how FTP has evolved over the years while remaining a widely used protocol for transferring files over the Internet. While the S3 API is fundamentally superior, it lacks the bare bones simplicity of FTP/SFTP and the ability to run in highly constrained environments. As a result, MinIO has added support for FTP and SFTP into the MinIO Server. Thanks for the info, Harshavardhana. 

#8 - The Architect’s Guide to Data and File Formats

Raghav Karnam covers the modern datastack and your options when it comes to data and file formats. MinIO supports all of them, leaving the choice up to you and your cloud architect to decide which to use. 

#7 - Setting up a Development Machine with MLFlow and MinIO

It’s been a boom year for AI and ML, and thanks to our awesome SME Keith Pijanowski, we are up to date with all the ins and outs. Our audience loved our series on MLflow—and it started here. 

#6 - GitLab and MinIO for DevOps at Scale

Developers love MinIO and they love GitLab. MinIO is easily configured as a basic installation that works as a shared cache for GitLab Runner. This ensures the cache is used reliably when multiple jobs run concurrently. We believe that anyone running a self-hosted GitLab installation will benefit by the addition of MinIO.

#5 - Data Migration Tools to Get You Into MinIO

MinIO runs on anything—bare metal, Kubernetes, Docker, Linux and more. Organizations choose to run MinIO to host their data on any of these platforms, and increasingly rely on multiple platforms to satisfy multiple requirements. AJ reviews some of the tools available to get data into MinIO clusters where it can be exposed to cloud-native AI/ML and analytics packages.

#4 - Why You Should Not Run MinIO on SAN/NAS Appliances (and the one exception)

MinIO is renowned for its minimalistic approach, prioritizing simplicity and automation. We embody the concept of having precisely what's necessary. Introduce an addition, and it transforms into clutter or excess; remove something, and it risks feeling deficient. Running MinIO on SAN/NAS is the equivalent of adding something that doesn’t need to be there. Yes you can do it, but you end up compromised on multiple levels, with multiple systems conducting redundant operations. Get the full scoop from Eco. 

#3 - Using Apache Airflow with MinIO

MinIO is the perfect partner for Airflow due to its exceptional performance and scalability, making it capable of handling any data-intensive workload effortlessly. AJ takes you through multiple use cases of the dynamic duo. 

#2 - Spark, MinIO and Kubernetes

Apache Spark and MinIO excel in data lakes and analytics. Running Spark on Kubernetes offers superior resource management and scalability. Combined with high-performance, scalable MinIO, it supports Spark workloads across diverse platforms like public/private cloud, data center, and edge on your chosen Kubernetes setup. Dileeshvar Radhakrishnan gives you a test drive. 

#1 - Manage Iceberg Tables with Spark

Drum roll please… we’ve reached number one! And it’s ‘Manage Iceberg Tables with Spark,’ which is a follow-up from the previous article. Dil keeps it cool with this powerful combination of technologies for building scalable high-performance data lakes. You guys loved it. Safe to say, we’ll be delivering more of this content to you. 

Phew… we did it. To our MinIO community, we couldn’t do it without you. Thank you for making 2023 an incredible year. We can’t wait for 2024 and many more.