GBASE helps the telecom industry, opening a new chapter in the localization of databases

From September 25 to 27, 2024, the 32nd "China International Information and Communication Exhibition" (hereinafter referred to as PT Exhibition) was held in Beijing.

As the basic software, the database is an important foundation for creating new quality productivity. At this PT exhibition, domestic database manufacturers have received widespread attention. The telecommunications industry is a strategic industry related to the national economy and people's livelihood, and with the continuous development of technology, the application of domestic databases in the telecommunications industry has continued to deepen in recent years.

Recently, we interviewed experts from GBASE to understand the application status and development trend of domestic databases in the telecom industry. Liu Ning, general manager of GBASE's general telecommunications department, believes that domestic database applications in the telecom industry will usher in a turning point in large-scale development, and user selection will be more mature and rational.

The localization of databases in the telecommunications industry has ushered in a turning point

Finance and telecommunications are the two industry mountains that domestic database manufacturers strive for, and they have high requirements for databases, and at the same time they are at the forefront of technology, and the latest technologies will basically be applied in these two industries.

Liu Ning pointed out that the localization of databases in the telecom industry is later than that of the financial industry, and the application of domestic databases in the telecom industry as a whole has gone through the embryonic stage (2019), pilot stage (2020-2021), and melee stage (2022-2023), and will begin to enter the stage of large-scale promotion in 2024, gradually moving from the edge business system to the core business system.

Specifically, in terms of OLAP databases, the domestic databases represented by NTU General GBase 8a have crossed the threshold from "usable" to "easy to use", while the OLTP database has the ability to replace the core business system.

Liu Ning observed that the application of domestic databases in the telecommunications industry has shown two obvious changes:

First, operators have gone down to promote self-developed databases, and some leading database vendors have stopped focusing on the telecom industry and turned to other markets.

At present, the first batch of centralized database lists that have passed the "safe and reliable evaluation" have been announced, and the results of the distributed database national test have not yet been released, so customers have some wait-and-see sentiment on the application of domestic databases, and the national test will also accelerate the convergence of domestic databases.

"The domestic database application in the telecommunications industry has ushered in a very good turning point, and now it is the dark stage before the dawn." Liu Ning said that in the melee stage, there was a vicious competition of low prices, and now the domestic database has gradually converged, ending the melee situation, and the market competition has become more benign. After the preliminary pilot verification, the lighthouse benchmark case library has been created, and the domestic database will usher in a period of rapid development of large-scale replication and promotion in the telecommunications industry, and the professional and easy-to-use database products will eventually gain the trust of users.

The demand and selection of databases in the telecommunications industry

Whether it can meet the needs of users is the only criterion to evaluate whether the database is easy to use, and there are commonalities and differences in the requirements of different industries for databases.

Liu Ning introduced that the financial industry and the telecommunications industry have high requirements for system stability, high concurrency, low latency, security, and strong transaction consistency. However, telecom operators pay more attention to business continuity, and if the service is interrupted, they cannot make calls or bill services, which will cause great losses, which requires the database to have high availability capabilities.

In addition, the telecommunications industry is a typical long business process, starting from the telephone call, involving the collection of phone bills, batch pricing, billing, settlement and other links, users from the business, ordering packages to open services, need to go through CRM, BOSS, business analysis system, the entire business process is longitudinally consistent, while the financial industry is a short business process, different business processes have great differences in the needs of the database.

Liang Jiubin, General Technical Director of GBASE, introduced that the long business process of the telecom industry involves many large transactions, and large transactions involve the operation of many tables, and so many operations either succeed or fail at the same time, which has high requirements for large transaction processing capabilities, and large transaction processing will also affect database concurrency and IO throughput capabilities. The short business process in the financial industry is vertically layered, processed through layers of stacks, and only needs to ensure that the transactions within the scope of this layer are strongly consistent, relatively speaking, there are no high transaction processing requirements of the telecom industry, and more attention is paid to the strong consistency, throughput and latency of the database.

Therefore, a database that can support the core business systems of the financial industry does not mean that it can support the business of telecom operators well, and it is necessary for operators to polish good database products in real scenarios.

Liu Ning pointed out that the domestic database replacement strategy in the telecom industry generally follows, from the edge to the core, from the point to the surface, from simple to complex. The replacement of limbic systems is more concerned with saving money and reducing the overall TCO. The replacement of the core system will be more cautious, and while paying attention to the overall TCO cost, more attention will be paid to the database product itself when selecting the model, and whether the core capabilities of the product meet the needs of users is very important.

At present, the application of domestic databases in the telecommunications industry has entered the deep water area, and enterprises are facing challenges in selecting applications. On the one hand, it is difficult to identify the high availability of a database through testing. On the other hand, some domestic databases cannot meet business needs after a period of online application, or there are supply chain security risks, and they face the problem of secondary localization replacement, which will incur greater costs.

Create a trustworthy database with "focus + professionalism".

Winning the trust of customers can win the future, Liu Ning, a veteran of the telecommunications industry, is very confident, he has been telling customers that they can use the GBase database with confidence, "we are rooted in the seedlings, red and specialized".

The so-called red, GBase database is in the list of information and innovation, among which, the first batch of centralized databases of NTU General GBase 8s V8.8 that has passed the "safety and reliability evaluation".

The so-called specialization has two meanings: focus and professionalism. On the one hand, GBASE is a company focusing on database software products and services, and has been focusing on making domestic databases trusted by users for 20 years, and databases are its only broad road. On the other hand, GBASE is a professional database software provider, and at the same time adheres to the principle of "stability" to create products.

Databases are now a red ocean in the telecommunications industry, and competition is fierce. Liu Ning's confidence in GBASE comes from the following three aspects:

First, as a professional database vendor, its full-stack GBase database products, including GBase 8a, GBase 8s, and GBase 8c, are in the first camp and can meet the diversified needs of the telecom industry.

Second, to build product competitiveness through standardized R&D processes and product quality management systems, GBASE has established and implemented an IPD R&D management system, driven by product innovation, to create general database products, and not to take the old road of traditional software selling heads.

"To make a general-purpose product, you must make the product to the extreme, and be able to deliver it quickly and simply, so that you can achieve profitability and customer satisfaction. If you rely on service to follow behind, get a list, and then follow a team, and having a team to follow all the time means that you have been fighting fires, and you can't go far. Liu Ning said that after experiencing turmoil and big waves, the GBASE team has become more down-to-earth and cohesive.

Third, GBASE adheres to its own business, seeks truth from facts, creates a stable core, serves customers well, brings actual value to customers, and builds trust and reputation.

A good database is used, and the GBase database has been verified by a large number of real-world scenarios to polish a better database product, thereby winning the trust of more customers and achieving a positive cycle. At present, GBASE has reached nationwide coverage in the telecom industry and has been exported to many overseas countries and regions, helping the telecom industry build core business systems and solving problems such as massive data surge and diverse business types in the telecom industry.