GBase Leads the Distributed Database Wave: A Promising Future for China's Database Ecosystem

On the afternoon of December 19, 2019, Inspur Group, a global leader in servers, big data, and cloud computing services, in collaboration with 51CTO, successfully hosted the "Clash of the Titans: Core Architecture vs. Innovative Architecture" debate in Beijing. GBase, as a long-term partner of Inspur Group and a representative of innovative (distributed) database architecture, was invited to attend. Zhang Shaoyong, General Manager of the Data Intelligence Product Business Department, delivered a brilliant argument.

This event, organized by Inspur Group, focused on centralized versus distributed database architectures, with in-depth debates from business application perspectives such as core transaction systems, sub-system query systems, and interactive participation systems. Discussions also covered availability, consistency, and reliability, along with technical aspects like cost-effectiveness, autonomous controllability, flexibility or compatibility, and scalability and extensibility; as well as operational perspectives like operational complexity and fault recovery capability.

Zhang Shaoyong, General Manager of GBase's Data Intelligence Product Business Department, as a representative of distributed database architecture, argued:

First, distributed databases support eventual consistency.

Technology serves application scenarios. With the exponential growth of internet users and data volumes, distributed databases are necessary to provide support. Most distributed web systems do not require strong consistency; therefore, sacrificing strong consistency for high availability is the direction chosen by most distributed database products today. This approach is guided by the CAP and BASE theories, aiming for basic availability and eventual consistency, ensuring high availability and business continuity for internet web systems (e.g., 12306, Taobao).

Second, distributed databases support innovative applications.

While some core transaction systems are suitable for centralized database architectures, other innovative applications are better served by distributed databases. They can well meet the needs of innovative applications for massive data, complex data types, high availability, artificial intelligence, elastic scaling, business flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and more. These numerous innovative applications, which rely on distributed databases, have been widely adopted by internet companies and are increasingly gaining attention and use in sectors such as finance and telecommunications.

With its unique advantages, distributed databases are being adopted in an increasing number of scenarios. As a representative of distributed databases, GBase entered into a comprehensive strategic partnership with Inspur Group as early as 2014. The two sides have jointly developed core big data technologies and products, continuously innovating and expanding into government, national defense, finance, telecommunications, and security sectors. The combination of these two leading Chinese server and database companies is a deep partnership built on a shared commitment to technical excellence and their respective professional strengths. Together, they are building a big data ecosystem and continuously delivering integrated solutions for transaction processing and business intelligence to customers. Going forward, there will be further opportunities for collaboration as they gradually realize the vision of a Chinese big data ecosystem.