亚信科技

Recently, the Spring Forum of the 6th World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai has drawn to a successful close. As a software developed by AsiaInfo Anhui Technologies that underpins the digital & intelligent transformation era, AntDB was given the privilege to attend this conference. During the “Smart Finance” forum, Bei Mo, the AntDB Technical Director of AsiaInfo Anhui Technologies, delivered a keynote speech titled “AntDB of AsiaInfo Anhui Technologies: Revolutionizing Core Transaction System Upgrades and Innovations for Financial/Telecom Operators.” The speech provided an all-encompassing view of the core transaction system upgrade process and feasible solutions, supported by a broad range of theoretical aspects combined with case studies.

Figure 1: AntDB Technical Director of AsiaInfo Anhui Technologies delivering a speech at the conference

Challenges in Upgrading Core Transaction Systems

In the era of digital & intelligent transformation and the rapid advancement of technologies such as artificial intelligence and metaverse, industries are faced with both new opportunities and challenges. As one of the three fundamental pillars of software infrastructure, the database plays a critical role in supporting digital & intelligent transformation and enabling the development of innovative technologies like artificial intelligence. For industries such as finance and telecommunications, upgrading and transforming core transaction systems hold immense significance.

When it comes to database performance, traditional centralized databases that rely on legacy systems encounter difficulties in handling large-scale concurrent processing. These limitations, including restricted connections and slow disk operations, result in performance bottlenecks.

Moreover, implementing horizontal scalability for databases presents a considerable challenge. The overall cost of hardware and software upgrades is extremely high, impeding the ability to meet new business demands.

With the continuous progress of IT application innovation in China, the transformation of distributed architectures for IT core systems in industries like finance, telecommunications, energy, power and transportation has become an essential requirement. The core transaction system represents the very heart of IT systems in industries such as finance and telecommunications. Its successful upgrade and transformation are pivotal in determining the overall success of their digital & intelligent transformation journey.

Facilitating Upgrade and Transformation of Core Transaction Systems in Finance and Telecommunications

The upward trajectory of database evolution revolves around technological innovation and a transition towards distributed architecture powered by X86ization. By harnessing the potential of distributed databases to address the need for horizontal scalability, coupled with business-specific scenarios, the upgrade and transformation of core systems can be seamlessly accomplished.

AntDB, which was introduced by AsiaInfo Anhui Technologies in the early 21st century, was a direct response to the operators' demands as foreign-brand databases fell short in meeting China's unprecedented requirements for managing high-frequency and high-concurrency communication data. Over the course of 15 years, AntDB has undergone remarkable refinement in the communication core business, evolving from a first-generation fully self-developed main memory database to a distributed streaming real-time data warehouse with extensive SQL ecosystem compatibility. This journey has culminated in four defining characteristics: “scale, longevity, blazing speed, and stability.”

So, what sets AntDB apart as a versatile, enterprise-level relational database in the realm of upgrading and transforming core transaction systems in finance and telecommunications?

First and foremost, its product stability and security have been thoroughly proven through extensive usage in operators' core business systems over the years.

Secondly, its multi-tenancy capability effectively isolates database instances from the logical layer down to the physical layer, ensuring that different businesses operate without interfering with each other. Moreover, it facilitates flexible resource allocation for computing power and storage during peak business periods.

Thirdly, AntDB's hyper-converged database incorporates a built-in data processing pipeline, enabling independent and non-interfering operations between data processing and business execution planes while guaranteeing real-time data processing.

Fourthly, it boasts a built-in data lifecycle management system that automatically segregates hot and warm/cold transaction data, optimizing the selection of computing and storage engines.

Lastly, with the support of AsiaInfo's AIOps service capability engine, AntDB empowers system operation and maintenance by providing intelligent assistance.

Most importantly, AntDB has already aided numerous customers in diverse sectors such as telecommunications, transportation and finance, enabling the successful upgrade and transformation of their core transaction systems. Its exceptional product and service capabilities have garnered widespread recognition and praise from its satisfied clients.

Core Transaction System Upgrade and Transformation Strategy Unveiled

During the conference, Bei Mo, the AntDB Technical Director of AsiaInfo Anhui Technologies, captivated the audience with a captivating case study showcasing how AntDB has empowered industries such as telecommunications and finance in upgrading and transforming their core transaction systems.

Firstly, he shed light on how AntDB spearheaded a groundbreaking advancement for a major telecommunications client by successfully migrating and transforming their core accounting system or database. The highlights of this case study are AntDB’s fault-tolerant Raft-based architecture, seamless scalability, and remarkable performance boost. All these result in a substantial enhancement in the efficiency of critical business operations, significantly reducing the processing time for outbound transactions, and achieving seamless online expansion of data shards within a matter of hours.

Subsequently, he explained the application of AntDB in managing a colossal detailed record database and upgrading the core CRM system of a province-level branch of China Mobile. AntDB effectively stores millions of call records for mobile communication users, facilitating billing, detailed record inquiry, and statistical analysis processes. By innovatively upgrading the architecture of the CRM domain system, incorporating read-write separation and micro-library utilization, AntDB helped a province-level branch of China Mobile achieve a smooth transition with minimal cost and risk, ensuring uninterrupted business operations through the seamless integration of the original database and AntDB heterogeneous biplanar database.

Lastly, he unveiled an exemplary application of AntDB in a big data platform for a leading life insurance company in northern China. The solution entailed deploying a distributed database configuration with a fault-tolerant setup consisting of a primary node and a secondary node, harnessing AntDB's powerful analytical computing capabilities to power this life insurance big data platform. AntDB, as a high-availability distributed database, demonstrated its prowess in handling complex scenarios such as big data queries, computation, and table associations, playing an instrumental role in elevating the performance of the life insurance big data platform to new heights.