Writing a Zero-Copy Database Parser from the Ground Up
Talkat RustConf 2026 · on Thursday, 2026-09-10· at 14:35· Room 511 | Palais des Congrès de Montréal, Palais des Congrès de Montréal·
summary
A Rust proxy implements a zero-copy parser that takes TCP bytes from kernel buffers, creates extendable slice views via a “peak” snapshot, and parses or rewrites in shard-local workers without atomics. It runs in safe Rust, uses a bytes-mute style buffer and a custom telemetry crate, and targets 16-shard pinning. Measured overhead is about 10–20 μs added latency and telemetry costs under 1% CPU; it supports compression, multiplexing, and improves throughput under contention.
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chapters (5)
- 0:00Introduction to zero-copy parsing
- 8:19Proxy architecture and routing
- 17:19Zero-copy implementation details
- 25:56Performance and telemetry benefits
- 32:19Summary and Q&A
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