China's Tech Pride: My Encounter and Acquaintance with GBase

Author: Wang Xuerui

I first came across GBase in 2021. At that time I had just started learning about the domestic IT innovation push, and I briefly explored various homegrown products like CPUs, operating systems, databases, and middleware. Back then, General Data Technology was just another vendor name to me.

I revisited GBase at the end of April this year. I had just finished launching several projects, and my schedule became less hectic, so I decided to deepen my knowledge of the domestic IT landscape and get some hands-on practice. Due to the COVID-19 lockdown at my workplace, I had access to a test environment, so I downloaded and installed GBase 8s. While reading the documentation and getting my hands on the system, asking questions and solving problems, I learned about General Data Technology's development journey. Having started with absorbing Informix and MySQL and then innovating to create multiple product lines, it is truly commendable that the company has grown step by step in a market dominated by foreign database giants.

The training opportunity came along coincidentally: I had been following their official WeChat account, and I was able to join the special university student workshop in June. I arranged my flexible study time each day. The exam questions were closely based on the training course and exercises, so they were not difficult and I passed smoothly. I have a slight gripe about the official GBase 8s PDF documentation: it lacks a navigation pane, making it hard to quickly jump to chapters. The content can be convoluted and quite a slog to read. In contrast, the training materials were well structured and easy to digest.

After passing the 8s exam, while my enthusiasm was still high, I signed up for the July 8a training. I finished the official documentation in three days, spent another day going through the training course and exercises, and passed the exam smoothly.

If GBase 8s is primarily aimed at domestic replacement for relational databases, GBase 8a completely exceeded my expectations with its distributed architecture, high scalability, high availability, and real-world industry applications. Moreover, features like encrypted storage and data masking perfectly aligned with regulatory requirements.

Throughout the learning and training process, I was amazed that General Data Technology and other Chinese database vendors are starting to come into their own, and I was touched by the enthusiasm for learning about domestic databases. I hope that General Data Technology and its peers will leverage the momentum of China's drive for information system security and self-reliance to grow even stronger!