On October 26th, the Global Distributed Cloud Conference (Shanghai) was successfully held. Mr. Zhang Hua, General Manager of AntDB Operation and Management Center, was invited again to deliver the keynote speech "AntDB Distributed Database Evolution and High Availability Solutions", sharing the road of AntDB evolution and high availability solutions in the market practice, and discussing with the participants on the theme of Database Forum "What is the future-oriented database?

Figure 1: Global Distributed Cloud Conference - Shanghai Site

Distributed database development drivers: scenario innovation, explosive data volume and data value mining

From 2G to 5G, the evolution of communication technology has driven the digital era and pushed the development of database technology. Zhang Hua said that scenario innovation, explosive data volume and data value mining have driven the development of distributed databases and will continue to be the driving force behind the evolution of database technology. The evolution of AntDB also benefits from the new scenarios, new data volume levels and new needs of data value mining brought by the upgrade of communication technology.

At the end of 90s and the beginning of 21st century, the traditional database bred in European and American markets could not meet the data management demand of cell phone subscribers and services which grew exponentially in a short time in China, especially when dealing with some core application scenarios (e.g. billing, signaling analysis, etc.), it could not meet the throughput and responsiveness of data processing. In this background, the AntDB team of AsiaInfo was established, and the first generation of AntDB self-developed in-memory database was applied in the core system of communication operators in 2008. With the upgrading and iteration of communication technology 3G, 4G and 5G, AntDB has also "kept pace with the times” and completed the "three-stage jump": from memory database to full-featured and universal relational database, then to full-stack database compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL open source ecology and highly compatible with foreign mainstream databases, and further to distributed database.

So far, AntDB has been operating steadily for 14 years in communication carrier core system, serving one billion users across the country, with its capability of processing millions of communication core transactions per second at its peak. It has four features, namely, “amount, history, speed, stability”.

Amount - A huge number of users. More than 1 billion mobile phone owners using AntDB in the background.

History - Long time of implementation. AntDB has gone through 14 years of trials and tribulations since its implementation in billing system in 2008.

Speed - Fast execution performance. All the call records and every message first sent on the Internet in the telecom business need the support of AntDB in the background, and AntDB can handle millions of core communication transactions per second at its peak.

Stability - Stable and reliable products. AntDB has been running smoothly, safely in the core system of telecom operators for more than ten years.

Future-oriented database: meets the needs of standard, massive and real-time data management

After reviewing the evolution of the distributed database, Zhang Hua shared with the guests the highly available solutions of AntDB for upgrading the database for customers in communication and transportation industries, and proposed that to achieve digital freedom, the enterprise database must meet the standard, massive and real-time data management requirements, that is, the database must have three capabilities:

Good teeth- the inclusive capability of  database to support structural and non-structural data and be compatible with the ecology system of Oracle, MySQL and PostgreSQL;

Good stomach- the smooth scaling of database on the basis of distributed architecture, while achieving efficient management of data and separating hot data from cold data. As the Chinese saying goes,”tolerance makes grace”;

Good body- the trials and tribulations of specific scenarios in the market endow database with rich ecology and make it easy to manage.

AntDB, as a distributed database that provides scalability and massive parallel processing, already has a full-stack, full-compatibility, full lifecycle product system. In the future, AntDB team will also continue to dedicate to the research and application of cutting-edge database technology based on new application scenarios and data management needs, and provide high-quality products and services to customers.

Figure 2: full-stack, full-compatibility, full lifecycle product system of AntDB

About AntDB

AntDB was established in 2008. On the core system of operators, AntDB provides online services for more than 1 billion users in 24 provinces across the country. With product features such as high performance, elastic expansion and high reliability, AntDB can process one million core communications transactions per second at peak, ensuring the continuous and stable operation of the system for nearly ten years, and is successfully implemented for commercial purpose in communication, finance, transportation, energy, Internet of Things and other industries.