Tencent Cloud makes another big move.
A few days ago, Tencent Cloud announced the unified upgrade of the original three product lines of TDSQL, TBase, and CynosDB to "Tencent Cloud Enterprise Distributed Database TDSQL". Since then, Tencent Cloud's goal has been very clear, that is, to integrate resources and fully enter the post-cloud database era.
What is the post-cloud database era?
The latter is relatively speaking. Looking back over the past ten years since the birth of the cloud, it can be clearly divided into two stages, the first stage is the cloud, and the second stage is the cloud. The difference is not necessary for me to explain. The cloud is a migration. It is a different kind of environment, the cloud is native, from birth to growth is an environment, the two are not the same.
The same applies to the subdivision of databases. As Li Gang, vice president of Tencent Cloud, said in his speech, the development of cloud databases is currently going through the first phase of "database to cloud", that is, from database to cloud database, to the second phase of "from cloud database to cloud native database". "The change.
There are many signs in this. On the vendor side, cloud database vendors are increasingly occupying the mainstream position. In the past, Oracle and Microsoft must be talked about when talking about databases. Today, I have to mention AWS. On the user side, customers in various industries generally accept cloud. In the future infrastructure, cloud-native databases have become the best choice for more and more users.
It is not difficult to see from the above that cloud database is at another critical point of change. It is precisely because of this that various database vendors and cloud service providers have tried their best to swear to occupy a more leading position in the database market after a new round of reforms, and Tencent Cloud is no exception. This is also the fundamental starting point for Tencent Cloud to continuously launch new products and to upgrade its brand.
Behind the brand upgrade
Let's analyze in detail what kind of signal Tencent Cloud is releasing to the industry behind the brand upgrade. The three product lines of TDSQL, TBase, and CynosDB are unified into Tencent Cloud enterprise distributed database TDSQL. why?
Before answering this question, let’s briefly introduce the characteristics and origins of these three database products. Tencent Cloud's database products are derived from Tencent's business scenarios. For example, TDSQL is derived from Tencent Billing and Tenpay; CynosDB was built for the cloud from the beginning; TBase was first incubated by the big data team.
Different business scenarios determine the different characteristics of the database. For example, TDSQL is a strong transaction database, CynosDB is a mass storage database, and TBase is an analytical database that can be applied to hundreds of P-level complex scenarios.
Up to this point, I don't need to say more about why you want to unify the three of them. First, the three products are inherently related, and they are all distributed databases. A unified brand internally means more technology sharing and product integration, which can save resources and improve efficiency internally; second, the three products are oriented to different applications The combination of scenarios can meet the distributed application needs of most customers. A unified brand can give customers a clearer understanding of the outside world and help business growth.
In the future, TDSQL will remain TDSQL, and CynosDB will become TDSQL-C, TBaseOLTP and HTAP will become TDSQL PostgreSQL versions; TBase OLAP will become TDSQL-A, and TDSQL will be the unified brand name of the three.
Innovation is the core competitiveness
After talking about why, let's talk about Tencent Cloud's new changing experience in the database market and what to support its strategic deployment.
Tencent Cloud’s achievements today cannot be achieved overnight. Tencent Cloud’s database is the same. How does Tencent Cloud win today’s status? In my opinion, the most important thing is a user-centric self-innovation spirit, which is particularly evident in Tencent Cloud Database.
Tencent Cloud database is rooted in Tencent's internal business. In other words, the early customers of Tencent Cloud database were internal, what was lacking in research and development, what was wrong, and iterated continuously. After long-term verification, Tencent Cloud announced that external customers changed from internal to external. , This process has some changes that customers can see, but at the same time there are many optimizations that customers can’t see.
Visible, such as the launch of large product solutions, the two most important evolution directions for Tencent Cloud database this year, one is localization, that is, the adaptation to upstream and downstream domestic software and hardware, Tencent Cloud can provide from hardware to software nationwide Production solutions, such as hardware and software integrated machines; the second is the enhancement of operation and maintenance and service capabilities. The more customers it serves, the more difficult this problem will be. This year Tencent Cloud will focus on the enhancement of the operation and maintenance of the product itself and the training of partners In the two aspects of certification, we are committed to keeping the complexity to ourselves and the simplicity to the customers.
The invisible ones are even more numerous. Pan Anqun, head of Tencent Cloud database technology, emphasized in an interview that the underlying basic capabilities of TDSQL, including stored procedures and distributed query procedures, have been iterating since its inception. Now Tencent Cloud It is still developing new engines based on new hardware.
The visible and the invisible constitute the moat of the Tencent Cloud database and push the Tencent Cloud database forward step by step. In the 2020 Magic Quadrant for Global Databases just released by Gartner, Tencent Cloud’s selection is the best proof; more than 500,000 customers, among them, the banking industry, among which industries with extremely demanding database requirements, choose Tencent Cloud Database is the simplest advertisement.
What to fight for in the future?
In the next step, where will Tencent Cloud database go? The database war is on the verge of breaking out. This includes both the declaration of war with traditional databases and the competition between various cloud vendors. Why does Tencent Cloud maintain its leading position and continue to improve? In other words, what is the future of the database market? ?
Compatibility, performance, reliability, availability? If you can't even meet these requirements, you may have been eliminated. After all, these are basic requirements.
In the view of Lin Xiaobin, general manager of Tencent Cloud database products, the core of the future database competitiveness is actually two points. First, is there anyone willing to play with you; Second, can the product become simpler and easier to use? , Can you copy some of the rapid diagnosis capabilities on the public cloud to other scenarios?
The first point relates to the ecology. The reason why more people are needed to play together is because the database involves many upstream and downstream and subdivision fields, which cannot meet the needs of users alone. The second point relates to product concepts and corporate strength.
Based on this judgment, an important iterative direction of Tencent Cloud Database in 2021 is to transplant some of the capabilities of the public cloud to the user's private cloud environment, so that it can meet the needs of hybrid cloud. In fact, the all-in-one database machine launched by Tencent Cloud this year is for this purpose, and there will be many similar measures next year.
Second, the ecological aspect continues to improve. At this strategic conference, Tencent Cloud has already launched the "Domestic Database Accelerator Industry Alliance Program" and established a database cooperation ecological support fund at the same time. The goal is to work with partners to build a fully open domestic database ecosystem.
Up to now, Tencent Cloud Database has more than 20 products and supporting services, with more than 1,000 product upgrade iterations each year, serving more than 1,000 government customers and more than 2,000 financial customers. However, in my opinion, this is just the beginning. The post-cloud database market is the sea of stars, and Tencent Cloud has greater potential and sufficient capabilities.