2022 China DevOps Community Summit: Exploring Technical Innovation in Domestic Databases

On August 13, the 2022 Tianjin Edition of the China DevOps Community Summit was grandly held at the Wanda Vista Tianjin. Continuing its mission of spreading DevOps culture and implementing DevOps practices, this summit invited numerous industry heavyweights to share their insights. In line with Tianjin's local tech ecosystem, a dedicated IT Application Innovation (XC) track was set up, creating a platform for technology professionals from Tianjin and across China to exchange ideas and immerse themselves in the city's vibrant tech innovation scene.

After over a month of intensive preparation, 34 sessions that represent the current state of DevOps development and practice were selected from more than a hundred proposals. The summit featured one main venue, five sub-venues, two workshops, eight track chairs, ten content reviewers, and over 40 frontline technical experts. Tianjin General Data Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "GBASE"), a leading enterprise in Tianjin's IT Application Innovation sector, was invited to participate.

At the summit, Li Jingrui, Solution Technology Director at GBASE, shared "The Road to Innovation and Development of Domestic Databases in the IT Application Innovation Sector" during the XC track. He reviewed the history of database development, analyzed innovative applications of domestic databases, and explained key industry adaptation cases.

Opportunities for Domestic Database Development

Amid the complex global political and economic landscape, even science knows no borders—but technology does. Foundational software is a core component of the IT supply chain, and databases, as a critical part of the IT Application Innovation sector, must be self-reliant and controllable. Regulations have raised the bar for domestic database products. For domestic databases to become the first choice for enterprise digitalization in China, they must possess key characteristics summarized as "Three Low and One High": low procurement cost, low migration cost, low O&M cost, and high availability.

Technical Innovation in Domestic Databases

Innovation 1: Database lightweight technology – low procurement cost;

Innovation 2: Intelligent database management system technology – low O&M cost;

Innovation 3: Active-active high availability architecture – high availability;

Innovation 4: "Database + New Hardware" – leveraging hardware processing power to significantly boost database performance: RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access) technology, in-built FPGA/GPU acceleration for intensive computing, and multi-tier caching technology based on NVMe.

Domestic Database Application Practice – Database XC Transformation Project

In one case study, a bank completed the XC transformation of its pilot systems for general business systems, office systems, and terminal devices in December 2020. By March 2021, the XC version of its core banking system officially went into production with a dual-track operation. At that point, all pilot systems had completed the XC transformation.

To mitigate risk, a dual-track mechanism with both XC and non-XC environments was adopted in the initial production phase. After thorough verification of functionality and load capacity, it was switched to single-track operation by the end of November 2021, and has been running smoothly ever since.

Data Migration Process Plan

After the transformation, the core banking system has been running stably, with significant improvements in transaction volume and performance indicators. It now fully serves the bank's over one million customers, handling an average daily transaction volume of more than 100,000. The average response time for business transactions has improved by approximately 20% compared to before the transformation, and the nightly batch processing time has been shortened to less than one hour, resulting in an overall efficiency gain of about 40%.

GBASE has focused on domestic database research for two decades, always committed to the IT Application Innovation field. To date, GBase database products—including the distributed analytical database GBase 8a, the transactional database GBase 8s, and the multi-model distributed database GBase 8c—continuously serve customers in key sectors such as finance, telecommunications, government, energy, and transportation. With over 30,000 deployed nodes and more than 300 PB of data under management, GBASE will continue to concentrate on its mission and build professional-grade databases with dedication.