KX has released KX Insights, a cloud native streaming analytics solution that provides fast, scalable real-time data insights without the capex and maintenance burden of on-premise infrastructure. KX Insights is built on the company’s cloud version of the kdb+ time series database and uses a microservices architecture that supports not only new KX users but also existing customers by providing a ‘small steps’ rather than ‘big jump’ migration to cloud native streaming analytics.
KX Insights, similar to other kdb+ options, is designed as a horizonal platform supporting multiple vertical data use cases from business insight and development to data science, trading analytics, reporting, risk management, compliance and more. It runs natively on all major hyperscale cloud platforms including AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, and can leverage thousands of existing cloud native services. With access to low cost storage such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Microsoft Azure Blob and Google Cloud Storage, the solution provides much lower infrastructure and maintenance costs than standard deployments.
Gerry Buggy, chief strategy officer at KX, says: “We hear more and more from our customers that they want access to their data and analytics without the associated compute and storage infrastructure costs. KX Insights provides fast, flexible and affordable access to a high-performance analytics platform that can transform operational performance and drive competitive differentiation.”
The use of standard, modern devops tools furthers the capabilities of KX Insight, with tools such as Docker offering containerisation for building and testing apps before deployment, and the Kubernetes application management ecosystem allowing the solution to run fully on cloud, on edge, or in hybrid or on-premise environments. It also supports SQL for integration and interoperability with other services and applications including database systems, visualization packages and business intelligence solutions. AWS Kinesis and Google Cloud PubSub integration will offer deeper workflow integration and automated decision making.
Buggy says KX Insights is a game changer for organisations making decisions based on real-time data as it offers the power and capabilities of kdb+ in a low-cost, subscription based, simple to use and highly dynamic and scalable environment.
KX started work on Insights in mid-2020, had the solution running internally at the end of the year, and ran user acceptance testing in early 2021, before release in March 2021. The company restructured internally to create an agile development scrum with small teams working in parallel on the platform and each developing and releasing microservices.
Dan Seal, senior vice president of streaming analytics at KX, says: “Encapsulation and an API mean we can build in parallel and use a continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) testing layer.” He adds, “This is not just about technology, but the need to realign people and processes to maximise ROI. As the world automates, it is moving towards complex event processing using time series data and delivering streaming analytics – this is where KX is.”
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