Featured Resources
Technical Paper
When the Changing Definition of Real-Time Breaks Your Existing Tech Stack
This technical paper looks at how the expectations of 5G are colliding with traditional software development and deployment, including:
- A checklist of 5 points you’ll need to evaluate if you want to successfully upgrade your tech stack
- Millisecond latency requirements that can’t be achieved with more or faster hardware
- Moving processing to local data centers at the edge, upending a decade of consolidating systems into massive regional data centers
- 5G’s focus on IoT and the impact on updating and long-term support for deployed systems
Business Overview
Because Milliseconds Matter
VoltDB is a high-velocity decisioning engine, proven to power real-time applications that must react in single-digit milliseconds to drive revenue or prevent revenue loss.
This core competency is absolutely necessary in the telecommunications industry. Where the introduction of 5G, combined with the explosive growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), is driving a massive increase in data volume, velocity, and variety. Meeting the scale, latency and transaction consistency levels made possible by 5G is simply not possible with legacy solutions alone.
In this gap between 5G-driven SLA requirements on the one side and legacy system shortcomings on the other, lies the power of VoltDB to digitally transform your business. Our platform’s unique capabilities allow it to handle telco’s complex, high-velocity data requirements better than anyone else.
VoltDB is especially effective for these application use cases:
- Business Support Systems
- Billing Mediation Systems
- Customer Management
- Revenue Assurance
Designed to augment telco-space enterprises’ previous big data investments, such as NoSQL, Hadoop, and traditional data warehouses, as well as messaging investments such as Kafka, VoltDB empowers enterprises to trigger crucial in-event decisions on complex streaming data, at scale, in under 10 milliseconds, and without compromising on data accuracy—to drive revenue or prevent revenue loss in real time.
Read our corporate overview to learn how VoltDB is powering telco in the age of 5G.
Report
Event-driven architectures deliver mission-critical capabilities for today’s digital business, including real-time intelligence, global scale, “lossless” business activity analysis, and application extensibility.
But even IT leaders commonly write off event-driven architectures as unfamiliar and challenging to their organizations’ control patterns. The perception of increased risk, combined with lack of technical skills, slow the adoption of strategic event-driven systems, thus delaying critical business innovation.
Read this new Gartner report, Maturity Model for an Event-Driven Architecture, where we believe you will learn:
- The characteristics of the different stages of event-driven architecture maturity in an organization
- The various factors that typically hamper a company’s progress in setting up efficiency and functional event-driven architectures
- How to build advanced competence in event-driven design
Gartner, Maturity Model For Event-Driven Architecture, Yefim Natis, Massimo Pezzini, Keith Guttridge, W. Roy Schulte, Refreshed 30 November 2020
Business Overview
VoltDB is an in-event decisioning platform that unlocks the revenue you’re currently not getting from your 5G-enabled fast data.
This paper is a summary of what that means and why it matters for customer management.
Infographic
Does your tech stack enable innovation and digital transformation
at the speed of 5G?
Read this infographic to learn how 5G is changing the customer management landscape for telcos and how telcos can better capitalize on 5G to create new monetization opportunities.
Case Study
Huawei Reduces Fraudulent Transactions 83% with VoltDB
GLOBAL IT LEADER ALSO 10X’S PROCESSING CAPACITY
PRINT-FRIENDLY PDF VERSION ALSO AVAILABLE.
A leading global information and communications technology solution provider as well as a consumer electronics giant, Huawei has long been at the forefront of big data and digital transformation. However, the company began to realize it needed to update its database capabilities to be able to keep with the increasing volume and velocity of transactional data. In the end, Huawei found a solution that not just solved its issues but produced a dramatic improvement.
The Challenge
Huawei’s FusionInsight is an enterprise-class distributed Big Data solution and premier analytical platform. Recognizing the value of combining Fast Data with Big Data, Huawei sought a foundational platform for expanding FusionInsight with real-time services.
The main issue was fraud analysis, where financial transactions are analyzed before they are authorized. Every time someone swipes or inserts a card or taps or scans a phone, the database needs to make a very quick decision about whether to authorize or decline the payment. Once an account is known-bad, it’s put on a checkable blacklist. The art is catching the fraud on the very first misused payment method. Getting this decision wrong can be expensive because you miss a fraudulent transaction, someone has to eat the cost of the purchase. Conversely, if you identify a legitimate transaction as fraud, the experience for the account-holder is poor.
To accomplish this real-time fraud analysis, Huawei needed a system that could perform hundreds or thousands of queries per financial transaction, applying user-provided logic and rules to gigabytes or terabytes of recent history, blacklists, and other state-based data.
This system would be packaged into the FusionInsight product, so it needed deployment flexibility, manageable cost, and financial-grade security.
The Solution
Huawei tried many different databases but was having trouble finding one that could support many millions of non-trivial queries per second and generate decision scores in single-digit milliseconds. VoltDB was the only system that could achieve this.
Huawei chose VoltDB not only for its ability to dramatically reduce current fraud detection latencies but also to automate real-time, in-event fraud detection and prevent millions of dollars in losses in doing so.
VoltDB was the clear only choice for Huawei’s demanding high-throughput requirements, which range from hundreds of thousands of transactions per second to more than a million per second at peak times.
Specifically, VoltDB offered Huawei all of the features they needed in a data platform — ie, features that enabled more powerful analytics with instant responses — including:
- Low Long-Tail Latency
- Operational Robustness
- High Throughput
- Low Operational Cost
- Cloud and Virtualization Friendly
- Highly Secure with Robust Auditing Built-In
At the end of the day, VoltDB stood alone.
Traditional RDBMS vendors would have cost more, required more hardware resources, and used multiple-levels of architecture to achieve the same result. NoSQL and other NewSQL systems couldn’t offer the query power needed to support the same levels of analysis at the same rates.
HOW IT WORKS
The FusionInsight platform accepts the set of user-provided rules and compiles them into a set of VoltDB stored procedures in a Java Jar file. The scoring procedures and dimension data (such as blacklists) are loaded into VoltDB and the customer is ready to analyze some fraud.
For every payment authorization, up to hundreds of procedures will be called, each with many SQL queries and different scoring logic. The client then combines the outcome of these procedures and makes a fraud decision, ultimately recording the result in VoltDB as well, so the record of that decision can be used for near-future fraud analysis.
The final part of the process is rule-set dynamics. Customers can change the logic in FusionInsight as often as every few minutes, meaning VoltDB has to accept and transactionally transition to entirely new logic without impacting load time.
The Results
With VoltDB, Huawei was able to log an 83% reduction in fraudulent transactions and increase its processing capacity by 10x.
VoltDB has significantly reduced credit card fraud detection latencies for Huawei, enabling Huawei’s customers, including financial services institutions, to implement real-time history queries and credit investigations and build new event marketing services focused on customer value management.
Read the press release announcing Huawei’s choice of VoltDB or download the PDF of this case study.
Case Study
VoltDB Powers Openet BSS Application Framework
Major Service Provider Cuts Latencies to Under 20 Milliseconds
Print-friendly PDF version also available.
Recently acquired by Amdocs, Openet is a leading independent supplier of real-time business support systems (BSS) to communication service providers (CSPs).
Openet’s systems process and rapidly analyze massive volumes of streaming data in real time to ensure that more than 600 million mobile telecommunications users around the world enjoy the best network and data experience possible while enabling mobile operators to monetize data use and prevent fraud in real time.
Since its founding in 1999, Openet has been at the forefront of telecommunications software development and innovation. This is characterized by its open platform, domain experience, and engineering expertise. Its success is evident in the many long-term relationships it has fostered with the largest, most progressive and demanding telecommunications service providers across the globe.
The Challenge
Mobile operators across the globe face the challenge of keeping up with the explosion of data brought by 5G and IoT. In trying to cope with these issues, they have increasingly turned to virtualization to improve flexibility and reduce operational overhead.
Openet has been at the vanguard of virtualization with many successfully deployed solutions scaling to meet the needs of the world’s leading Tier 1 service providers.
Openet FusionWorks is the advanced software architecture upon which all of the company’s solutions are built, enabling seamless integration, centralization of common functionalities, and support for custom logic. Fusionworks delivers a modular environment to support configurations that can meet any service provider’s unique policy, charging, and mediation needs.
To better adapt to the world of 5G and IoT, Openet required a more powerful data platform for Fusionworks.
The Solution
In 2012, Openet selected VoltDB as the logical choice for a data platform capable of supporting the real-time demands of mobile data.
“We wanted to move toward a higher-performance, in-memory database that could combine the capabilities of an operational database, real-time analytics, and stream processing in one easy-to-use platform,” said Openet Director of Product Development, Oisin Loftus. “We also needed a database that was elastically scalable and could grow and contract as needed.”
With VoltDB, Openet can now offer transactional, database-oriented applications against data feeds that were previously limited to stream processing methods.
Since Openet solutions are always inline in a service provider’s call path, Openet required transaction latencies of less than 20 milliseconds, so performance and scalability were major requirements.
“VoltDB offers the TCO, performance, and scalability we need while enabling us to handle fast data and the real-time feeds of service provider traffic,” Loftus said.
The Results
By integrating VoltDB’s in-memory database infrastructure to support its wide range of business support systems, Openet has been able to scale and automate real-time decisions.
VoltDB has allowed Openet to maximize performance, elasticity, and utilization of its application framework model.
“VoltDB has been very responsive to our needs and continues to work closely with our engineers to help us meet our goals,” said Loftus. “At Openet, we have high expectations, and we’ve driven VoltDB into domains that are new to them and the VoltDB development team has responded well. The product is very good and continues to evolve, and the VoltDB team continues to work closely with us to address the real-time database demands of major service providers.”
Solution Brief
Telecommunications companies and communications services providers (CSPs) are standing at a technological crossroads. Read our latest solution brief to learn why VoltDB is the only choice for enabling an unprecedented level of offer personalization and customer engagement in the era of 5G.
Solution Brief
Telcos need to adapt to 5G, but their legacy systems are buckling under the demand for network agility, new revenue streams, and better customer experience. Read our latest BSS solution brief to learn how VoltDB’s no-compromise data platform overcomes the toughest real-time data challenges to support BSS applications in the world of 5G.
Report
How IT/OT Convergence Will Enable New 5G Business Models
Real-time decisioning intelligence is critical to telco operators’ future, as much for enabling internal efficiencies as for empowering customers to capitalize on new, 5G-related monetization opportunities.
But the evolving customer requirements, particularly in light of IoT and massive machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, means that telcos are increasingly needing to handle informational and operational data together. This confluence of IT with OT — and its proper handling — imply the unlocking or rapid evolution of certain real-time decision intelligence-related capabilities.
STL Partners has developed an in-depth report exploring these capabilities and how they relate to the new world of 5G data, including:
- The “unspoken reality” of 5G monetization
- The four main use cases required to unlock the full value of 5G
- Five practical tips on how to rapidly evolve these capabilities
- Why real-time decision intelligence is the future for telco operators
Technical Paper
Why NoSQL (AND SQL) Mostly Fall Short For 5G
Be careful what you wish for?
In the case of telcos…yes.
They wanted 5G and they got it, but many are now finding it extremely difficult to keep up with the combined data demands of 5G, IoT, and machine learning. Their tech stacks aren’t prepared, and they are questioning their database technology.
NewSQL, NoSQL, SQL: What’s the difference between them for telcos and why should they be carefully considering these differences in the age of 5G?
Our ebook explores this, plus:
- How ACID requirements match up to telco database needs
- Where SQL and NoSQL fall short and where they still might be useful for telcos
- Why NewSQL are especially valuable to telcos and CSPs
Technical Paper
Apache Kafka is a powerful messaging queue that has become a core component of many enterprises’ tech stacks. But using Kafka to the fullest, especially in a time when 5G, IoT, and machine learning are amping up data volume, velocity, and complexity, is not an easy task, and many companies are finding their Kafka investments in dire need of some TLC.
VoltDB has many customers using Kafka in conjunction with our in-memory NewSQL data platform to enable real-time, in-event decisioning. We understand the need to complement other technologies, such as Kafka, and for companies to understand how VoltDB can be combined with Kafka to enable real-time decisions on complex, streaming data.
Read this ebook to learn:
- Three ways to use VoltDB with Kafka
- A new method to replace Kafka using VoltDB
- How VoltDB works with Kafka Connect
Report
The Role of the Telco
Author:
Mark Newman
Chief Analyst
TM Forum
The $40 billion-plus 5G market is expected to grow almost 40% annually through 2027, and telcos are primed to be at the forefront of this growth. However, 5G isn’t exactly an easy technology to control or manage as it involves an unprecedented level of data ingestion requiring totally new database technologies that can ingest and act on data in record time.
What are these technologies and how can telcos, and their vendors and customers, leverage them to fully capitalize on the promise of 5G?
Read our report to learn:
- The three key technologies telcos will need to make the most of 5G
- The two relatively new technologies enterprises will use to fully leverage 5G
- How database architectures are changing to adapt to telcos’ real-time data needs
Report
2020 was as challenging for telcos and communications services providers (CSPs) as it was for most other industries, but it wasn’t necessarily all doom and gloom. In fact, a large percentage of CSPs and their various interconnecting parts—including operators, vendors, and systems integrators—are very optimistic about 2021, and some even reported positive outcomes from 2020.
This year’s Telecoms.Com Annual Industry Survey queried 500 telco industry professionals on the status of their companies, their feelings about how 2020 transpired for telcos, the technologies they’re investing in, the trends they see building, and the trends they see fading away.
Read it to learn:
- Where telcos stand with 5G and how 2020 has changed the 5G outlook
- If new service offerings like QoS are on the docket and expected ROI
- How COVID-19 affected all types of digital transformation investments for telcos
- Where and why the telco industry is hitting snags around technologies like broadband, edge intelligence, automation, and cloud
Report
Is Your Intelligence on the Edge?
Edge computing is critical for digital transformation. 5G, edge computing, digital transformation, digital twins, machine learning, and AI appearing together looks like buzzword bingo. But there is a rational connection between these topics and technologies. In this trend report we look at:
- How data lakes and streams give life to intelligence at the edge
- Why edge computing will be critical for digital transformation
- How 5G and MEC encourage edge intelligence to become pervasive.
Business Overview
In July 2020, Amdocs announced its acquisition of Openet and, here at VoltDB, we couldn’t have been more excited. Because Openet has long used VoltDB to power its best-in-class business support systems, we wanted to share our own summary of the technology strengths Amdocs will gain as a result of this acquisition and why it is good news for the 5G space.
Report
Real-Time Applications and New Service Revenue Opportunities
Author:
Sean Kinney
Editor in Chief
RCR Wireless
“Data is not a database problem anymore. Data is a data problem. What is the value you’re missing with your existing choices that you can get if you think differently?”
Download the feature report where T-Mobile, Ericsson, Rakuten Mobile, Vodafone, and VoltDB discuss real-time applications and new service revenue opportunities in the 5G era.
Case Study
DELTADNA SELECTS VOLTDB TO ENABLE REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION
Delivering Real-Time Player Engagement for Game Developers and Publishers
PRINT-FRIENDLY PDF VERSION ALSO AVAILABLE.
DeltaDNA relies on the VoltDB data platform to power its real-time game analytics and marketing platform. In-memory analytics on high-velocity data enable deltaDNA customers to instantly track, anticipate, and respond to individual player behavior. Leveraging VoltDB, deltaDNA empowers game developers and publishers to perform in-depth player analysis on colossal amounts of data streaming in from each game and take action within a quarter of a millisecond. Real-time player engagement enhances the in-game player experience and drives player retention and monetization. This innovative solution can help customers increase player retention by as much as 200% and revenues by as much as 40% by providing micro-personalization of each player’s experience.
The Challenge
DeltaDNA has combined gaming industry heritage and marketing analytics expertise to create the online gaming industry’s first dedicated real-time personalization and player insight platform. With cross-platform and rich data capabilities, this end-to-end solution enables game publishers and developers to better understand different player behaviors and create personalized experiences by targeting individual players in real-time. Being responsive to players significantly increases engagement and unlocks retention and monetization opportunities. deltaDNA puts the power of data into the hands of game developers and publishers by providing a flexible platform to maximize player engagement for Free-2-Play (F2P) games, social casino games and real-money online gambling sites.
This high-performance platform analyzes the immense volumes of fast-moving data generated by each game in real-time, gathering behavioral information about each player, such as their spending behavior and skill level. With this insight, deltaDNA’s customers are able to personalize the gaming experience by changing the gameplay and making targeted offers and incentives. This can increase player engagement by as much as 50% and boost in-game purchases by as much as 30%.
“VoltDB is enabling us to solve a needle-in-the-haystack problem for our customers,” said Chris Wright, Co-founder and CTO of deltaDNA. “The high-performance VoltDB data platform gives us the ability to perform real-time analysis on hundreds of millions of events as they occur. In a quarter of a millisecond, we’re able to turn data into actionable intelligence that fosters player loyalty, extends a game’s value and increases overall game revenues.”
The Solution
In 2012, Openet selected VoltDB as the logical choice for a data platform capable of supporting the real-time demands of mobile data.
“We wanted to move toward a higher-performance, in-memory database that could combine the capabilities of an operational database, real-time analytics, and stream processing in one easy-to-use platform,” said Openet Director of Product Development, Oisin Loftus. “We also needed a database that was elastically scalable and could grow and contract as needed.”
With VoltDB, Openet can now offer transactional, database-oriented applications against data feeds that were previously limited to stream processing methods.
Since Openet solutions are always inline in a service provider’s call path, Openet required transaction latencies of less than 20 milliseconds, so performance and scalability were major requirements.
“VoltDB offers the TCO, performance, and scalability we need while enabling us to handle fast data and the real-time feeds of service provider traffic,” Loftus said.
The Results
By integrating VoltDB’s in-memory database infrastructure to support its wide range of business support systems, Openet has been able to scale and automate real-time decisions.
VoltDB has allowed Openet to maximize performance, elasticity, and utilization of its application framework model.
“VoltDB has been very responsive to our needs and continues to work closely with our engineers to help us meet our goals,” said Loftus. “At Openet, we have high expectations, and we’ve driven VoltDB into domains that are new to them and the VoltDB development team has responded well. The product is very good and continues to evolve, and the VoltDB team continues to work closely with us to address the real-time database demands of major service providers.”
