by Anam Alpenia, Red Herring
The future of the database lies in geography. TransLattice, the provider of distributed database and application platforms, today released the next generation in databases that uses multiple locations to strategic advantage. The company announced the world’s first geographically distributed Relational Database Management System that uses an elastic approach to place nodes in a variety of locations. Those nodes instantly back up the data from across geographies, serving as a safety net in the case of a blackout or data disruption.
Instead of the traditional approach of stacking database servers within 200 feet of each other, TransLattice Elastic Database (TED) geographically distributes the data across an organization’s geographic locations. The company’s proprietary technology is then able to stream and synch the data together, providing instant backup and replication with no emergency calls in the middle of the night.
“We allow these mass workloads to operate on the public cloud for the first time,” said Mike Lyle, CTO of TransLattice. “We’re able to take that footprint and transmit it seamlessly. It’s really a disruptive technology.”
In a traditional database, a power outage or other catastrophe can wipe a company’s data off the map. Backup is a risky business, as failover isn’t always successful and remains frustratingly slow. With TransLattice’s approach, that backup is instantly provided through an adjacent node that completely replicates an organization’s data without a blip of downtime.
The damaged node then instantly heals itself, running at a lightning speed compared to traditional approaches. Whereas traditional databases can only run several rows a second, TED can back up thousands of rows, as automatic as breathing, no IT pit stop required.
That ease and automation adds up to serious savings for its customers. The company provides the database at a 60 to 80 percent savings from traditional databases. While a year’s worth of service costs $1.3 million under IBM’s DB2 Pure Scale and $800,000 under Oracle’s RAC, TED costs about $300,000 per year.
Plus, TED makes it simpler to manage data through easily configured policies, complying with various legal systems of regional geographies automatically. Data stored in a center in Germany cannot legally leave the country, for example, so the company’s system keeps the sensitive data only on nodes within the country. Any data that needs to stay well out of China can easily be managed to be stored accordingly.
Mission critical data can likewise be positioned strategically close to the edge of a network for improved response time. The nodes can be added on demand with no downtime using virtual machines, cloud instances, TransLattice appliances or any combination thereof for complete scalability.
Founded in 2007, the company serves a handful of customers who until now had operated its platform, which included the database technology. TED should serve to widen their potential and flexibility, and in turn expand its customer base, said Frank Huerta, TransLattice’s CEO.
“This is going to be significant,” Huerta said. “It gives businesses a tool that works with their applications — a new database to give them geographic scalability and better performance right out of the box, yet working with their existing SQL data sets that they’ve already been developing for 30 years.”
Ultimately, TED empowers smaller players with enterprise capabilities and complete flexibility on a dime, Lyle said.
“We are creating a world where no longer does the infrastructure dictate how a company does business,” Lyle said. “Instead, a business’s requirements constitute how the infrastructure will work. We’re building information systems into a seamless fabric that respond to any business needs that pop up. We want our customers to decide what the IT does for them, not the other way around.”
The company is backed by DCM Ventures with $9.5 million in investment. With its customer base currently concentrated in the US, TransLattice has data systems throughout the world, and plans to expand internationally in the next 18 months.