Yangtze River reporter Li Jianhua correspondent Zhang Shanni Jiang Xuanyi
"Speaking of 'Dameng', many people will ask, what is Dameng's dream? Our dream is to master the core technology and build a world-class database in China. On June 27, Feng Yucai, founder and chairman of Wuhan Dameng Database Co., Ltd., told about his unchanging dream of serving the country with science and technology for more than 40 years at the special session of "Wuhan New City World Optics Valley" of the theme report of "Accelerating the Transformation of 'Three Advantages' and Reshaping the 'Heavy' of Wuhan in the New Era".
On June 27, Feng Yucai, founder and chairman of Wuhan Dameng Database Co., Ltd., made a report at the special session of "Wuhan New City and World Optics Valley" of the theme report of "Accelerating the Transformation of 'Three Advantages' and Reshaping the 'Heavy' of Wuhan in the New Era". Photo by Yangtze River reporter Peng Nian
On June 12, Dameng Database Co., Ltd. was officially listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, becoming the "first stock of domestic database", and has been sought after by the capital market for half a month since its listing.
From the first database research institute in China to the first database stock, Feng Yucai, who is known as the "dream chaser" of the domestic database in the industry, said with emotion that for more than 40 years, Dameng's dream has always been to adhere to independent innovation, master the core technology, firmly grasp the lifeblood of science and technology in his own hands, and lead the high-quality development of the enterprise with high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement.
"If the Chinese do not master this technology, they will definitely be controlled by others in the future"
"Determined to be Chinese's own database, originated in the late 70s of the last century." Feng Yucai recalled that in 1978, he went to Wuhan Iron and Steel Hot Rolling with a group of teachers from Huazhong Institute of Technology (the predecessor of Huazhong University of Science and Technology) to conduct research, during which a shocking thing happened: when a project was completed, the Japanese destroyed three trucks of technical data on the spot.
This scene deeply stung all the teachers in the survey, and I secretly decided at that time: I must master the core technology and not be controlled by others. With the help of some Chinese scholars, I started working on databases. I found that the database has a wide application in national economic life, and if the Chinese do not master this technology, they will definitely be controlled by others in the future. Feng Yucai said.
"At that time, I was in a state of 'three nos' with no funds, no equipment, and no team, and many people felt that it was impossible to be a database management system that could only be developed by a large foreign company. But the scene of WISCO's hot rolling has always inspired me to run towards this goal. With the support of this belief, I fought alone for 8 years. Feng Yucai said that at that time, foreign database products had not yet entered China, and all he could access was some English materials, but he was a Russian-language learner, so he could only rely on English-Chinese dictionaries and translated hundreds of database papers and materials.
Hard work pays off. In 1988, Feng Yucai developed the prototype of China's first database system, the Chinese character relational database management system CRDS, and built the code root of China's database. In 1989, this achievement won the second prize of scientific and technological progress of the State Education Commission, and was supported by relevant state departments.
On June 27, the special event of "Wuhan New City, World Optics Valley" of the theme report of "Accelerating the Transformation of 'Three Advantages' and Reshaping the 'Heavy' of Wuhan in the New Era" was held. Photo by Yangtze River reporter Peng Nian
"We withstood the pressure and resolutely followed what most people thought was the most difficult path."
In 1992, Feng Yucai established the first database research institute in China---- Dameng Database and Multimedia Research Institute. In 2000, Dameng Company was established. "During this period, we experienced many crises and various temptations, but we gritted our teeth and survived, and we have always adhered to the technical route of independent research and development." Feng Yucai said.
Since 1997, the Ministry of Science and Technology has conducted PK tests on domestic databases every year to test and evaluate, and the winning enterprises can be supported by national scientific research funds, and Dameng has won the first place for six consecutive years. But in 2003, Dameng turned out to be the first. "The reason is that we do have a gap compared to the open source systems of our competitors." Feng Yucai said, "At this time, there were voices inside and outside the company, persuading me to take the open source route to quickly turn the situation around. I thought about it again and again, but I still insisted on the original intention, original innovation, independent research and development. ”
"We withstood the pressure and resolutely followed what most people thought was the most difficult path." Feng Yucai said that in 2003, Dameng's Wuhan and Shanghai teams ate and slept in the computer room, and completed the original two-year research and development workload in 7 months, and in the 2004 evaluation, Dameng's indicators were once again far ahead, back to the top of the list, and the company's predicament was lifted. From DM1 to DM8, Dameng has continued to mature and improve in the market, and has achieved a leap from usable to easy-to-use, which has been widely recognized by users.
"In-depth service for key industries such as major national projects, finance, communications, and electric power"
Shared storage cluster technology is the key to improving the high availability and high performance of data management, and is widely used in industries related to the national economy and people's livelihood, such as finance, communications, power and energy, etc., and is known as the crown of database technology, which has been monopolized by foreign manufacturers. After 15 years of painstaking research and more than 4,000 days and nights of hard work, Dameng finally achieved a breakthrough in database sharing cluster technology.
"Independent innovation is not only the country's strategy, but also the soul of Dameng." Feng Yucai introduced that at present, Dameng has more than 320 authorized patents, more than 370 software copyrights, and the core source code autonomy rate is 100%. To provide customers with full-stack products and solutions covering the whole life cycle of data, which can meet the various needs of users in various industries in different application scenarios, and deeply serve key industries such as major national projects, finance, communications, and electric power.
"Dameng will keep in mind General Secretary Xi Jinping's entrustment, further accelerate independent innovation, strengthen technology research and development, based in Wuhan, facing the whole country and looking at the world, to build a world-class database in China and realize the Chinese dream of database." Feng Yucai said.
(Editor-in-chief on duty: Chen Zhiyuan, director on duty, Wang Chong, editor on duty, Zhu Xidong)