HTAP at Actian: The Best of Both Worlds in Data Management

One of the most exciting trends for the balance of this decade will be HTAP, or Hybrid Transactional/Analytical Processing – a recently-coined term representing the next generation of hybrid, converged software infrastructure that can handle both traditional transactional data management AND modern analytic data management workloads.

Every business is struggling to find new tools and techniques for analyzing the volume, variety and velocity of Big Data. It is obvious that a new generation of columnar Analytic SQL Databases (like Actian Vector) will be critical to delivering on the promise of modern analytics. At the same time, organizations are familiar with, and trying to preserve their investment in, traditional transactional SQL databases (like Actian Ingres) that represent the backbone of data management in most organizations.  How do you marry those two data management models and needs?

What if you could have the best of both worlds – a truly multi-model hybrid transactional and analytic database? Robust, enterprise-class OLTP database capabilities that leverage a 30+ year history of pioneering work in data management. And then add the world’s highest-performance columnar analytic database engine (with Vector Processing) into the same database infrastructure. One database, one security model, one SQL, one vendor – providing innovative HTAP that covers the entire hybrid spectrum of data management:  OLTP or analytic; cloud or on-premise. Now that is something to get excited about.

And this is precisely what you get with Actian X hybrid database, which we released last week.

The Actian approach to HTAP with Actian X pioneers in additional ways. Rather than tightly coupling our vectorized analytic processing as a limited set of in-memory replicant-only Analytic Tables that are tightly linked and synched with operational tables (with inherent in-memory architecture limits and brittle latencies), Actian approached HTAP with a more loosely coupled mindset. By embedding an integrated high-performance data integration engine within Actian X, Actian provides more flexible coupling of the downstream analytic processing.  Such innovation yields vital control points around re-fresh latencies, analytic schemas, and memory optimization (e.g.: Actian X leverages Vector‘s best-in-class usage of the FULL memory continuum (disk, flash, RAM, and CPU cache).

This world of hybrid data management opens up an entire new wave of possibilities – leaving behind the old world of mono-stacks and data silos; opening the door to modern hybrid stacks that are more conducive to data management needs of the future.

And we think the value of Actian X transcends data management, extending to data integration as well. We have reached a point in the evolution of IT where the fully digital enterprise is in sight. But to get there, the digital enterprise must navigate an application and data landscape of such startling heterogeneity that one-dimensional mono-stack products and their data silos are simply overwhelmed across all elements of data infrastructure. Only products and vendors that fully comprehend the innately hybrid nature of modern data management and integration challenges can survive and prosper. In terms of architecting the modern digital enterprise, the mono-stack is dead. Long live the hybrid stack.

About Actian Corporation

Actian is helping businesses build a bridge to a data-defined future. We’re doing this by delivering scalable cloud technologies while protecting customers’ investments in existing platforms. Our patented technology has enabled us to maintain a 10-20X performance edge against competitors large and small in the mission-critical data management market. The most data-intensive enterprises in financial services, retail, telecommunications, media, healthcare and manufacturing trust Actian to solve their toughest data challenges.