GBase Expert Interview: Entering the Critical Stage, What Kind of OLTP Database Do Core Systems Need?

In the past two years, the wave of domestic database substitution has entered a critical stage, with core systems in key industries such as finance, telecommunications, and rail transit accelerating their upgrade and replacement. According to industry reports, from a technical architecture perspective, centralized databases still dominate in these critical sectors. Survey data from the Financial Industry Database Supply Chain Security Development Report (2022) shows that centralized databases account for up to 89% of the total in the financial industry, including 80% in banking, and over 90% in both securities and insurance. According to the Database Development Research Report (2023) released by the CCSA TC601 Big Data Technology Standard Promotion Committee, centralized databases also maintain a dominant position in the telecommunications industry.

As the substitution enters a more critical phase, what challenges and opportunities do domestic databases face? Should the domestic replacement be a 'straight swap' or a 'transformation and upgrade'? In a flourishing database market, what are the key focuses and difficulties in the current development of centralized databases? Recently, Guo Zhuo, Director of the GBase 8s Product Department at GBase, was interviewed by ITPUB, a leading Chinese database and architecture technology community, to discuss these questions.

Interviewee: Guo Zhuo, Director of GBase 8s Product, has been deeply engaged in the database industry for over a decade, working on the front lines of domestic databases and having served in roles including data development, data technical support, and product manager.

Q: Core System Database Requirements and Selection: How to Choose a Suitable Database?

The replacement or upgrade of domestic databases across various industries has generally progressed from edge systems to core systems, and from partial to overall scope. Core systems demand the highest requirements for database stability, performance, high availability, and security. Guo Zhuo explained that core systems in different industries have varying requirements for TP databases.

Financial services and telecommunications primarily require databases with strong data processing capabilities, stability, data consistency, and high availability. For instance, core business systems in finance must guarantee strong consistency and high availability of the database to ensure accurate data service and smooth system operation at all times. In telecommunications, massive amounts of data are generated daily, requiring the database to handle large volumes of user data and network data. TP databases must be able to cope with heavy concurrent pressure and deliver efficient data processing for rapid transaction and data handling.

Government and public sector data often includes sensitive information, such as ID card details, requiring databases with robust security features, including user verification/authentication authorization and data encryption to ensure privacy and security.

In the rail transit industry, high-frequency transactions, such as subway gate transactions or ticket counter transactions, impose stringent requirements on database stability, processing performance, consistency, and concurrency.

Overall, the requirements for TP databases across industries center on: stability and reliability, data integrity and consistency, data processing capabilities, and data security. Guo Zhuo emphasized, “None of these high requirements can be satisfied with just a score of 80—they all demand a perfect 100.”

Although the requirements are clear, choosing a suitable database is not easy. Guo Zhuo explained that organizations mainly consider the following factors when selecting a database:

First, performance and stability. It's essential to assess the database's performance when handling large data volumes or high-concurrency requests, with a particular focus on long-term operational stability, as well as high availability and fault tolerance.

Second, compatibility. Many users undertaking domestic substitution pay attention to compatibility, especially syntactic compatibility with databases such as Oracle, DB2, and MySQL, as this directly affects the overall cost of database replacement.

Third, ecosystem support, including community, documentation, and training.

Fourth, technical service support, including continuous product iteration and bug-fixing capabilities. Professional technical services directly from the vendor are more friendly for system operation and maintenance personnel and can help reduce overall maintenance costs.

A truly usable database product is honed through real user scenarios. It is widely acknowledged that domestic databases are now transitioning from 'usable' to 'good to use,' and achieving this is the key to future success. Different people may have different answers to what makes a database good to use. In GBase's view, a good database is one that earns users' trust.

Building a TP Database That Earns User Trust

GBase has been established for 20 years, making it a pioneer among Chinese database vendors and a full-stack database provider. GBase databases include AP, TP, and HTAP solutions to meet diverse business scenario needs.
“Many may be more familiar with our analytical database GBase 8a, but in fact, our TP transactional database GBase 8s has an even longer history,” Guo Zhuo said.

GBase 8s was launched in 2005, making it GBase's longest-established database product. In 2014, aligned with the company's overall strategic plan to cover OLTP scenarios across all industries, GBase initiated an architectural redesign and upgrade for 8s. In 2016, the comprehensively upgraded GBase 8s was officially released, delivering strong high-availability cluster capabilities based on shared storage and the robust capability to replace core OLTP systems across industries, with 100% independently developed source code.

Subsequently, GBase 8s entered a new development phase. Since the release of GBase 8s v8.8 in 2017, the database has gradually been adopted in key industries. With continuous ecosystem expansion and enhanced syntactic compatibility with Oracle and MySQL, GBase 8s has matured into an OLTP database capable of supporting hundreds of terabytes of data, with high security, high reliability, and strong transactional consistency..

To meet the varying needs of different business systems, GBase 8s provides flexible high-availability solutions, including: intra-datacenter shared storage clustering (SSC) or primary-standby high availability (HAC) with RPO=0 and RTO<10 seconds; intra-city primary-standby disaster recovery (HAC) with RPO=0 and RTO<30 seconds; and remote disaster recovery (RHAC) with RPO<100 and RTO<2 minutes. Failover occurs within seconds, achieving 99.999% high availability. All high-availability capabilities are built into the database itself, without relying on any third-party components, which enhances stability while reducing construction and maintenance costs.

Today, GBase 8s can replace mainstream international databases in over 80% of scenarios and replace Oracle and Oracle RAC clusters in more than 95% of cases. It is widely deployed in core systems across critical industries including government and public sector, finance, telecommunications, rail transit, and energy, becoming one of GBase's three flagship products, with over 50,000 nodes deployed cumulatively.

For example, in a large state-owned enterprise project, GBase 8s provides a two-site, three-center high-availability solution. Since its launch in 2017, the project has accumulated nearly 100 TB of business data and now supports hundreds of application microservices, with daily TPS exceeding 2,000—making what would be peak load in ordinary systems the norm, a testament to the system's demanding pressure. The system's longest continuous operation exceeds 600 days, fully demonstrating GBase 8s's stable operation and resilience under stress.

In the rail transit industry, GBase 8s has achieved full industry coverage, building independently controllable and secure core business systems such as line network command centers, clearing and settlement systems, ticketing systems, multi-line center systems, and integrated monitoring systems. Since expanding into this sector, GBase has been deployed in over 20 cities, including Shenzhen, Chongqing, Xi'an, and Chengdu, across multiple metro lines, supporting the efficient and stable operation of core business systems in road, rail, aviation, and maritime transport. Among these, Shenzhen Metro, with its passenger traffic, data volume, and processing demands representing the highest tier among Chinese metro systems, has been running GBase 8s stably for a long time, earning customer trust.

Q: 'Straight Swap' or 'Transformation and Upgrade'? How to Achieve a Smooth Replacement?

The wave of domestic substitution brings opportunities for domestic databases. During the substitution process, two main strategies are 'straight swap' and 'transformation and upgrade.' Which should you choose, and how can you achieve a smooth transition?

Guo Zhuo believes that both 'straight swap' and 'transformation and upgrade' have their respective advantages and challenges, and the choice should be based on business needs, data complexity, and migration difficulty. In general, smaller business systems are more suitable for a straight swap, while large-scale core systems may benefit more from transformation and upgrade. To achieve a smooth domestic database replacement, she offers the following recommendations:

First, thorough testing. Before going live, conduct comprehensive testing in the production environment, including functional, performance, and stress tests. Additionally, some destructive testing is recommended to ensure the overall performance and stability of the new business system, from hardware to software.

Second, gradual migration. Depending on the business situation, a step-by-step migration is advisable, especially for older large-scale systems with huge existing data. You can consider migrating cold and hot data in phases to the new database while running both old and new systems in parallel, achieving a more reliable cutover through a flexible transition.

Third, backup and rollback strategies. Ensure a comprehensive backup strategy and rollback plan are in place during the replacement process to handle unexpected situations. Typically, before going live, the GBase 8s team customizes automated backup scripts and general rollback schemes based on each business system's specific requirements. For instance, during the core system replacement at Luzhou Bank, the GBase 8s expert team implemented a customized rollback plan to ensure that any issues during the upgrade could be rolled back in the shortest possible time, minimizing business impact.

Fourth, training and support. Provide adequate training and support to ensure that after project delivery, the operations and development teams can proficiently use the new database system. Currently, GBase provides product training for every system before it goes live and has also introduced a three-tier certification training system to help customers develop professional technical talent.

Fifth, monitoring and optimization. Regardless of whether it's a straight swap or an upgrade, once the business system goes live, ongoing monitoring and continuous performance optimization of the new database are crucial.

There is no fixed strategy. Guo Zhuo emphasized that the ultimate choice should be made on a case-by-case basis, as each business system has its own requirements. Even for the suggestions mentioned above, the priorities may vary from one organization to another.

In Conclusion

To better support core systems and seize the opportunities of domestic substitution, GBase 8s has charted its future development direction: it will continuously enhance syntactic compatibility with mainstream databases like Oracle, strengthen the overall product ecosystem, offer multi-write multi-read capabilities, support multi-version concurrency control (MVCC), enable on-demand deployment both on-cloud and on-premises, and support RDMA high-speed networking.

A good database requires craftsmanship. 'Despite some uncertainties at present, one thing is very certain for GBase: we will remain focused on building enterprise-grade database products that earn user trust.'