# Base Layer EP 03: Spencer Kimball on Governance Is the Real Blocker
[Listen now](/content/base-layer/spencer-kimball/index.html)

**SpiceDB / Open-source Google Zanzibar**  
The standard for building authz services

SpiceDB is an open source, Google Zanzibar-inspired database for creating and managing security-critical application permissions.

[Learn the basics](/content/docs/index.html)  
[Explore on GitHub](https://github.com/authzed/spicedb)

## Learn key concepts

[**Define a Permissions Schema**](/content/docs/spicedb/modeling/developing-a-schema/index.html)  
Define types of objects, how those objects relate to one another, and the permissions that can be computed from those relationships.  
[**Integrate Your Applications**](/content/docs/spicedb/getting-started/client-libraries/index.html)  
Integrate with your application using official and community supported client libraries or make requests to the HTTP API endpoint.  
[**Test and Deploy**](/content/docs/spicedb/modeling/validation-testing-debugging/index.html)  
Use provided tooling to develop and validate schema changes. Use the built-in testing server to run real API calls against test data.

## Define authorization as schema
Design tailored authorization systems by defining relationships, permissions based on those relationships, and bits of policy called Caveats.

## Features

SpiceDB is the open-source, **Google Zanzibar-inspired permissions database** used to build **fine-grained authorization services** at scale.

-  **Expressive APIs**  
Expressive gRPC and HTTP/JSON APIs for powering authorization logic in your client applications.  
-  **Distributed Graph**  
Distributed, parallel graph engine faithful to the architecture described in Google's Zanzibar paper.  
-  **Prevents New Enemies**  
A flexible consistency model configurable per-request that includes resistance to the New Enemy Problem.  
-  **Configuration Language**  
Intuitive authorization configuration language — SpiceDB Schema — with CI/CD integrations for validation & testing.  
-  **Pluggable Storage**  
Support for in-memory, Spanner, CockroachDB, PostgreSQL, and MySQL relationship storage.  
-  **Deep Observability**  
Deep observability with Prometheus metrics, pprof profiles, structured logging, and OpenTelemetry tracing.

## The toolkit
Everything you need to deploy, manage, and integrate SpiceDB.

### SpiceDB Operator
Optimize your Day 1 and Day 2 operations with our official Kubernetes SpiceDB Operator.

- `kubectl apply -f spicedbcluster.yaml` — create, manage, and scale SpiceDB clusters with a single Kubernetes resource.
- Zero-downtime datastore migrations — run painless migrations regardless of your backing datastore or SpiceDB version.
- Automated update channels — configure clusters to follow release channels and automatically roll out updates.

[authzed/spicedb-operator](https://github.com/authzed/spicedb-operator) Public

### zed CLI
The easiest way to interact with your SpiceDB Deployments.

- Context switching — securely change environments with credentials stored in your OS keychain.
- Full RPC support — leverage all of SpiceDB's RPCs from your command-line.
- Easy testing — validate your schema and test assertions with `zed validate`.

[authzed/zed](https://github.com/authzed/zed) Public

## Awesome SpiceDB
A thriving, open ecosystem of official and community programs and libraries used to interact with SpiceDB.

- Official libraries — get started with official Go, Java, NodeJS, Python, and Ruby client libraries.
- Community libraries — leverage additional libraries built and maintained by the SpiceDB community.
- Integrations — browse additional integrations for examples of projects that integrate with SpiceDB.

[authzed/awesome-spicedb](https://github.com/authzed/awesome-spicedb) Public

### AI development
Open-source toolkit for permission-aware AI.

[View resources](/content/spicedb/ai-development/index.html)

## Run it at scale
Showcase

### Used at scale

-  One authorization platform for AI products  
-  Scalable sharing for Reddit Ads  
-  Enterprise permissions for everyone  
-  ABAC for Netflix's identity types

Release

### SpiceDB v1.56.1
[tstirrat15](https://github.com/tstirrat15) released this 11 days ago.

[Install](https://github.com/authzed/spicedb/releases/tag/v1.56.1)  
[Release notes](https://github.com/authzed/spicedb/releases/tag/v1.56.1)

### AuthZed Cloud
Hosted, self-service SpiceDB, run by the AuthZed team. Only pay for what you use and skip the ops.

## Join the conversation

### Live community chat
Ask questions, share what you're building, and meet other people running SpiceDB in production.

[Join Discord](/content/discord/index.html)

### Open source
SpiceDB is built in the open. Issues, PRs, and discussions live on GitHub — first-time contributors welcome.

[authzed/spicedb](https://github.com/authzed/spicedb)