Sharpen Yourself, Await the Bloom — My GBase 8a Training Experience

By Liu Jie

December is a season of harsh cold, when all things lie dormant and the world is covered in white snow. Yet December is also a busy, fulfilling time of sowing and waiting, accumulating the strength of life amid the desolation; the bitter winter carefully nurtures the coming spring. Lying low, gathering strength, and awaiting the bloom—this is the disposition of winter, the course of the pandemic, and, in the eyes of us technologists, a beautiful hope.

We are an IT team from the railway industry, long responsible for the deployment and implementation of our organization’s IT projects. With over ten years of deep experience in the IT field, we would like to share a few humble insights on current IT trends and the development of indigenous technologies. As internet technology has advanced in recent years, an increasing number of individual entities have aggregated into sub-modules of a larger whole. The growing demand for information resources makes the collection, storage, and application of such resources particularly crucial. Consequently, the database market has expanded and its applications have become more widespread—constantly posing new requirements for us IT professionals, especially for myself and my team. So this year, upon the recommendation of our organization and industry colleagues, all members of our project team participated in the GBase 8a GDCA certification training in December. In the end, 14 of us sat the exam and all passed, with four achieving outstanding scores above 95. We are very grateful to GBase for this learning opportunity, and we have recorded our experiences and insights from this training to share with everyone.

Indigenous Innovation: Following the Trend Will Surely Lead to Great Success

Amid the ongoing global “pandemic tsunami,” with sporadic domestic outbreaks and large parts of the world “overwhelmed,” looking further back, events such as the United States’ unilateral suppression of China’s high-tech industries like ZTE and Huawei have all rung alarm bells and made us keenly aware that core technologies cannot be begged for, bought, or imported. 2020 marked the starting point for the full-scale rollout of the IT Application Innovation industry. From my own experience, in recent years, indigenous CPUs, operating systems, databases, and other technologies have been thriving. Major vendors are continuously investing and silently cultivating core technology areas, constantly polishing, releasing, perfecting, and ultimately deploying new software products. Among them, GBase has consistently adhered to the independent R&D and promotion of indigenous databases, providing users with a full-stack portfolio of domestic database products and services that have been widely applied in finance, telecommunications, government, energy, and other industries. With national policy support, sustained investment by vendors to overcome core key technologies, and user trust, indigenous innovation is surely the overriding trend and is bound to achieve great things.

Genius Lies in Diligence, Knowledge in Accumulation

The first step to rapid growth is laying a solid foundation; sound professional knowledge is the very basis that helps a seed sprout. In early December, we joined the GBase 8a GDCA certification training, bringing along some of our own technical questions. In the classroom, the instructor explained the core technologies of GBase 8a MPP Cluster—such as installation and uninstallation, cluster management, SQL usage, and more—in simple terms, accompanied by specific hands-on demonstrations that gave us a more intuitive feel for system operation steps and common troubleshooting.

A “Magical” Database: GBase 8a MPP Cluster already supports over 200 large enterprise users worldwide, with more than 10 years of technology accumulation, a cumulative deployment of 25,000+ nodes, and a total data volume exceeding 200 PB. It is suitable for both PB-level massive data and TB-level smaller data scenarios. For us technologists, its security and reliability—column-level data encryption, encryption-token-based in-database data masking, three-tier high availability at the cluster, node, and process levels, as well as guarantees of data integrity and consistency, plus full-text search with sub-second response for hundreds of billions of queries—left a deep impression on us. We also experienced the steadily accumulating technical advantages of GBase database products along with their excellent installation and scalability, and we believe they will gain even broader market recognition in the near future.

An Engaging Classroom: We had previously attended many training sessions that were highly professional but somewhat lacking in fun. Before this training, the instructors notified us thoroughly via phone and WeChat, carefully reminding us of the schedule and preparations so we could plan our work and study time in advance. During the training, the class was witty, fun, and highly interactive. The materials incorporated numerous real-world cases and frontline technical feedback, many of which were problems we often encountered in practice. The content progressed step by step, from simple to complex, making it easy for us to understand and absorb. Afterwards, dedicated instructors were assigned to answer our questions and respond promptly. In the group chat, students discussed heatedly, often arguing until “red in the face” over a technical detail, yet all thoroughly enjoyed it. With such great teachers and helpful peers, we all felt that learning became far more enjoyable.

A Comprehensive Training System: The database field is broad and vast, with countless technical details and operational steps. The instructors had a clear arrangement for the training system, with beginner, intermediate, and advanced courses that are well-connected, progressive, and complementary. There were also foundation-strengthening courses, refinement courses, and advanced enhancement courses tailored to learners at different stages. Overall, the entire training aligned perfectly with the original intent of the GDCA entry-level certification: it not only enhanced everyone’s understanding of GBase, but also ignited a passion for learning. Everyone was asking about and looking forward to the GDCP intermediate certification for 8a, as well as training on other GBase products.

Science is the Commander, Practice the Soldier

The GBase 8a MPP Cluster has been with us for five years, providing 7×24 high-availability, uninterrupted data services. The GBase 8a cluster has earned our high trust and reliance; it has become an indispensable and vital part of our work, playing a key role in our production operations. GBase 8a products not only deliver outstanding performance but also excellent service support: whenever there is a new upgrade or feature, we are informed immediately; whenever we have a minor issue or question, we receive timely answers and resolutions.

Finally, we are immensely grateful to GBase for providing this learning opportunity, which on one hand has deepened our understanding of the broader environment and industry, and on the other hand has tangibly enhanced our ability to operate the database and troubleshoot issues in practice. We believe that these accumulated experiences and refined skills will be of great benefit to our future work and to the expansion of our company’s business, and we firmly trust that we can await the blooming in time.

May we all store up nutrients, root downward deeply, and trust that we will witness one another’s bloom.