Ant Financial Services Group, the owner and operator of Alipay, announced on Wednesday it launched the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) version of its technology product OceanBase, a financial-grade distributed relational database that has been a key computing infrastructure for Alipay.
Ant Financial describes OceanBase as a highly stable, scalable, reliable and budget-friendly compared to other traditional database solutions. Less than six months ago, OceanBase was ranked number one in terms of performance by the Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC), a global non-profit that defines transaction processing and database benchmarks.
“It became clear in 2010, two years after Alibaba first launched its annual 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, that traditional commercial database solutions could no longer keep up with growing user demand for a seamless, stable, scalable, and reliable payment experience on Alipay. In response, Ant Financial began to develop OceanBase, and finally replaced all legacy database solutions with this new financial-grade product in 2016.”
Ant Financial also reported that in 2018, it announced an initiative to open up a full suite of its technology products to support the growth of financial institutions, including helping them to optimize the user experience and reduce costs. Various major financial institutions, such as China Construction Bank, Bank of Xi’an, Bank of Nanjing, PICC Health, Bank of Suzhou and Guangdong Rural Credit Union, since then have deployed the OceanBase database solution. The company went on to add:
“The launch of the SaaS version of OceanBase marks a new milestone. The SaaS solution will provide a more flexible and cost-effective option to small-and-medium enterprise customers and developers, enabling them to access all of the computing capabilities that OceanBase has to offer.”