OceanBase Cloud Explained: What It Is and Where It Will Be Heading
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Han Fusheng, OceanBase’s founding engineer and senior R&D director, has shared his thoughts on OceanBase Cloud. This article is a summary based on his conversation with Bai Yushan, Oracle ACE/OCM.
What are the benefits and features of OceanBase Cloud?
OceanBase Cloud stands out for its cost efficiency, HTAP capabilities, and integral cross-cloud architecture.
OceanBase has been working hard on improving the cost efficiency of our products. Cost efficiency brings great value to enterprises regarding storage and server resource usage. OceanBase adopts an innovative hybrid row/column storage architecture, which makes it possible to greatly compress the data because the data is stored in regular formats in an OceanBase database. In fact, the original business data of customers can be compressed by three to ten times in an OceanBase database, meaning that 10 TB of data in a customer’s old system may take up only 1 TB of space in an OceanBasean database. The high compression ratio significantly reduces storage costs and is one of the reasons that attract customers. As for server resource usage, OceanBase supports highly concurrent connections and multitenancy to make it efficient. For example, MySQL databases are widely deployed on the cloud but have performed unsatisfactorily in supporting high connection concurrency and may lead to system instability in the case of high-concurrency scenarios. To address that issue, many enterprise users of such databases have to reserve considerable server resources for the peak, which is an obvious waste. OceanBase, on the contrary, allows the same server to support higher concurrency.
Multitenancy is another great capability of OceanBase. Cloud databases are available in a range of specifications, such as 4 cores, 8 cores, and 16 cores, taking CPU specifications as an example. However, these specifications are fixed by those of cloud servers. OceanBase multitenancy allows an enterprise to deploy a single hybrid cluster to support its different business lines. The best part of the hybrid deployment is that, with the multitenancy feature, it supports resource splitting in a large cluster to fit the actual business scenarios. Enterprises can greatly reduce the number of servers and save more.
When it comes to HTAP, many vendors may brag about their systems, while OceanBase garners credits by providing customers with practical solutions to their issues. A key reason for our success is that OceanBase started business mainly in transaction processing (TP), which requires a database to be highly stable and reliable. In comparison, analytical processing (AP) relies more on system functionality and performance. Keeping a system reliable is way much harder than making it functional. A conventional way to integrate TP and AP capabilities is to deploy a database as the TP system and a data warehouse as the AP system, and then connect the two with synchronization middleware. This method causes headaches. First, the huge costs. The more the systems, the higher the upfront investment. Second, troubles due to modifications. An enterprise must modify the configurations of both TP and AP systems as it adjusts its business from time to time. Such changes cause great O&M burdens because you must find proper ways to deal with historical data and control the risk of data inconsistency. These two issues, if in a single system, can be easily addressed. As OceanBase has overcome the challenge of maintaining transaction stability and reliability, it is natural to work on AP solutions by making use of our distributed architecture, which supports data processing on multiple servers. In this way, we can help an enterprise handle both transactions and analysis tasks in one system. In fact, the HTAP capability is expected by an increasing number of enterprises when they realize the value of data and want to exploit it. A more user-friendly system can help enterprises make use of the HTAP capability more easily.
Now let’s talk about the integral cross-cloud architecture of OceanBase Cloud. Compared to the native databases of other cloud vendors, OceanBase provides an integral database that can be deployed across different cloud platforms. We have customers who have figured out their own cross-cloud deployment mode and deployed OceanBase Database on the platforms of multiple cloud vendors using different underlying hardware capabilities. However, we will keep upgrading the cross-cloud capability of OceanBase, making it more powerful and easier to use. OceanBase has already supported database service on AWS, you can buy and enjoy it with a few clicks. We will also provide a unified database access portal, which allows customers to manage their OceanBase databases deployed in different cloud spaces on the same platform. This way, their databases can be interconnected to support better cross-cloud data migration and help customers generate more value out of their data.
Here is a detailed explanation of how OceanBase has stroke a balance between costs and performance.
Are there any success stories of OceanBase Cloud in helping SMBs around the world with their digital transformation?
OceanBase supports customers from many industries.
Our first customers are Internet finance companies. This is because their business scenarios are quite similar to those of Alipay, where OceanBase was first deployed. As many features of OceanBase match their needs just right, companies like DANA and GCash soon deployed OceanBase as their primary databases. GCash in particular is a VIP customer to us, and all its core systems are running on OceanBase Cloud. The service reliability and availability of OceanBase make it a great helping hand in tackling the business challenges of customers.
Many companies in the new retail industry such as Trip.com also migrated their systems to OceanBase Cloud. Customers in this industry will get new orders and launch promotion campaigns by using their Internet-based business platforms. To be honest, online promotion campaigns are not something good for a database because massive amounts of data are randomly generated, causing a great impact on the database’s performance. OceanBase well handles concurrent requests and traffic surges and effectively helps customers withstand the peak load during promotional events. OceanBase provides easy-to-use analytical capabilities. This allows customers to discover the value of their transaction data and helps them do better in getting orders and campaign organization, keeping their business growing.
OceanBase also benefits companies that engage in cross-border business. Many Chinese companies doing great in the domestic market have expanded their business abroad and are making a growing profit. The feature of OceanBase that benefits a company the most is the integral cross-cloud architecture, which allows the company to deploy OceanBase on not only Chinese cloud platforms but also those provided by global vendors such as AWS. In this way, it can use the same database system to support different business lines in different regions both at home and abroad. As business management is made easier, customers can be more focused on promoting their business growth.
Where is OceanBase Cloud heading?
We believe that the database industry is a cornerstone for the development of enterprises and the entire society as it handles all their key data. So, we must hold a long-term outlook on this industry. While OceanBase has been plowing for 12 years in the database industry, we still have a lot to do in the future, and we have the guts and will to carry on.
On the one hand, we need to keep upgrading the database kernel of OceanBase.
In the past two years, OceanBase has greatly improved the Oracle compatibility of its features such as triggers and foreign keys. Next, we will keep enhancing the compatibility with other Oracle features, such as PL/SQL packages, a very useful feature that is much expected by many of our customers, but causes headaches when they try to migrate their databases from Oracle to other platforms. We have made great efforts in this regard and will gradually enhance its compatibility with OceanBase.
Also, the performance of OceanBase is better. We have done a lot to optimize its capabilities, such as HTAP, vectorization, and multi-level parallel execution. Next, OceanBase will continue to improve its analytical performance, such as the performance of distributed parallel execution, and make the execution more adaptive. We are also working on the optimizer, making it better for processing complex requests. It’s for sure that constant optimization will benefit users significantly.
In addition, OceanBase provides more high-performance features in one system, which allows customers to deal with their needs more easily and improve operational efficiency at lower costs. In terms of cloud services, OceanBase will soon provide plans with lower database specifications, making our services accessible to more customers who want to take a trial or migrate their business to OceanBase Cloud.
On the other hand, we are strengthening our capabilities of multi-cloud deployment and cross-cloud database management, so that you can easily use one database product across multiple cloud platforms.
OceanBase Cloud has just been launched. You may register an account and have a try.
