Database localization in the telecom industry surges forward, accelerating into a new era.

From September 25 to 27, 2024, the 32nd PT Expo China (hereinafter referred to as "PT Expo") was held in Beijing. Themed "Driving Deep Integration of Digital and Real Economies to Build New Quality Productive Forces," the expo systematically showcased hot topics and cutting-edge technologies, including new infrastructure, new applications, new terminals, new technologies, and new governance.

As a foundational software, databases serve as a critical pillar for building new quality productive forces. At this year’s PT Expo, domestic database vendors garnered significant attention. The telecom industry is a strategic sector vital to national economy and people’s livelihood. With continuous technological advancement, domestic databases have seen increasingly deeper adoption in the telecom industry in recent years.

We recently interviewed experts from GBASE (General Data Technology) to learn about the current status and development trends of domestic databases in the telecom industry. Liu Ning, General Manager of the Telecom Department at GBASE, believes that the application of domestic databases in the telecom industry is reaching a turning point toward large-scale deployment, with users becoming more mature and rational in their selection.

Database Localization in Telecom Reaches a Turning Point

Finance and telecom are the two pinnacle industries that domestic database vendors strive to conquer. Both have stringent requirements for databases and are at the forefront of technology adoption—new technologies are almost always first applied in these two sectors.

Liu Ning pointed out that the adoption of domestic databases in telecom lagged behind the financial industry. Overall, the application has gone through an embryonic stage (2019), a pilot phase (2020–2021), and a chaotic competition phase (2022–2023). Starting in 2024, it has entered a phase of large-scale rollout, progressively moving from peripheral business systems to core business systems.

Specifically, in the OLAP database category, domestic databases represented by GBase 8a have crossed the threshold from "usable" to "highly functional." Meanwhile, OLTP databases have initially gained the capability to replace legacy systems in core business operations.

Liu Ning observes two notable shifts in the application of domestic databases in the telecom industry:

First, telecom operators have begun promoting their in-house databases, while some leading database vendors have shifted their focus away from the telecom sector to other markets. These changes have ended the chaotic competition, leading to a consolidation of database vendors.

Second, the national secure and reliable evaluation list (often referred to as the "national evaluation") for databases is gradually being released. Operators have high expectations for database security and reliability and pay close attention to this list. Currently, the first batch of centralized databases that have passed the evaluation has been announced, while the results for distributed databases are still pending. As a result, customers are somewhat taking a wait-and-see attitude toward adopting domestic databases. The national evaluation will also accelerate the consolidation of the domestic database market.

"The application of domestic databases in telecom has reached a very positive turning point—it is currently the darkest hour before dawn," said Liu Ning. During the chaotic competition phase, there was vicious price-cutting. Now, as the domestic database market consolidates and competition becomes healthier, a set of lighthouse benchmark cases has been built through prior pilots. The domestic database market in telecom is poised for a high-speed growth period of large-scale replication and rollout, and professional, user-friendly database products will ultimately earn user trust.

Demands and Selection Criteria for Databases in Telecom

The ability to well satisfy user needs is the sole criterion for evaluating a database’s quality. While different industries share common database requirements, they also have distinct differences.

Liu Ning explained that industries critical to national economy and people’s livelihood, such as finance and telecom, all demand high system stability, high concurrency, low latency, security, and strong transactional consistency. However, telecom operators place even greater emphasis on business continuity. Any service interruption—whether in calls or billing—would cause enormous losses, which requires databases to have high availability capabilities.

Furthermore, the telecom industry features long business processes. From the initiation of a phone call, the process involves call detail record (CDR) collection, rating, billing, and settlement. From service subscription to activation, the journey traverses CRM, BOSS, and business analytics systems—a vertically integrated end-to-end workflow. In contrast, the financial industry typically has short business processes, leading to very different database requirements across workflows.

Liang Jiubin, Technical Director at GBASE, added that long business processes in telecom involve many large transactions—transactions that span multiple table operations, all of which must either succeed together or fail. This imposes high demands on large-transaction processing capability, which also affects database concurrency and I/O throughput. In contrast, the short business processes in finance are vertically layered and handled through stacked layers, requiring strong consistency only within the scope of each layer. Thus, they demand less heavy large-transaction handling than telecom and place greater focus on strong consistency, throughput, and latency.

Therefore, a database that can support core financial business systems does not necessarily mean it can well support telecom operators’ businesses. It needs to be refined in real-world operator scenarios to become a truly good database product.

Liu Ning pointed out that the replacement strategy for domestic databases in telecom typically follows a path from edge to core, from point to surface, and from simple to complex. For edge systems, the focus is more on cost savings and reducing overall TCO. For core systems, the replacement is more cautious; while TCO remains a consideration, greater emphasis is placed on the database product itself—whether its core capabilities meet user needs is paramount.

Currently, the application of domestic databases in telecom has entered a deep-water zone, and enterprises face challenges in selection and deployment. On one hand, high availability capabilities are difficult to discern through testing. On the other hand, some domestic databases fail to meet business needs after a period of live operation, or they may pose supply chain security risks, leading to a second round of domestic replacement—which would incur even greater costs.

Building a Trustworthy Database Through Dedication and Expertise

Winning customer trust is the key to future success. Liu Ning, a telecom industry veteran, is highly confident and always tells customers they can use GBase databases with peace of mind, "We are solidly grounded and deeply specialized."

By "grounded," we mean GBase databases are included in the IT Application Innovation (ITA) catalog. Notably, GBase 8s V8.8 was among the first batch of centralized databases to pass the national secure and reliable evaluation.

"Specialized" carries two meanings: dedication and expertise. On one hand, GBASE is a company solely focused on database software products and services. For two decades, it has concentrated on building a domestic database that users can trust—database is its one and only path. On the other hand, GBASE operates as a professional database software provider and adheres to the principle of "stability" in building its products.

The telecom database market is now a red ocean with fierce competition. Liu Ning’s confidence in GBASE stems from three aspects:

First, as a professional database vendor, its full stack of GBase database products—including GBase 8a, GBase 8s, and GBase 8c—are all top-tier in terms of technology, capable of meeting the diverse needs of the telecom industry.

Second, it builds product competitiveness through standardized R&D processes and product quality management systems. GBASE has established and implemented an IPD (Integrated Product Development) management system, upholding product innovation as its guiding principle to create general-purpose database products, rather than following the old path of body-shopping in traditional software.

"For a general-purpose product, you have to bring it to the extreme—enabling fast and simple delivery to be profitable and achieve high customer satisfaction. If you rely entirely on following up with services, landing a deal and then assigning a team to constantly stand by, that means you’re always fighting fires; that approach won’t go far," said Liu Ning. Having weathered turbulence and market trials, the GBASE team has become more down-to-earth and cohesive.

Third, GBASE adheres to honest business practices, stays grounded, and builds a robust kernel to serve customers well, deliver tangible value, and establish trust and a strong reputation.

Great databases are forged through real-world use. GBase databases have been refined through extensive real-world scenarios, resulting in better products that win more customer trust, creating a virtuous cycle. Today, GBASE has achieved nationwide coverage in China’s telecom industry and expanded to multiple overseas markets, empowering the telecom sector to build core business systems and address challenges such as massive data growth and diverse service types.