How Universal Databases Promise to Simplify Data Management
Can a “universal database” do the work of many special-purpose databases? That’s the promise of SingleStore’s distributed SQL database. They describe it as “the world’s only hybrid, multi-cloud unified analytical and transactional database.”
The company goes a step further. They share its universal database represents a new category “that will define the future of how businesses can ingest, consume, analyze and transact with data at a massive scale.”
That’s a bold claim, but not unprecedented. For more than 20 years, a few disruptive tech vendors have touted universal databases as a way to simplify data management using a single platform for both transactions and analytics. Not all have been successful. In 1997, Informix acquired one of the original developers of a universal database, Illustra. A few years later, IBM picked up Illustra.
Nevertheless, the concept continues to have its adherents. Oracle describes Oracle 21c as a “converged database” that can support various data types and workloads. It includes online analytical processing (OLTP), analytics, and IoT. IBM’s DB2 is similar in its data dexterity.
And yet, purpose-built databases that are optimized for specific workloads — the opposite of a universal database — are very much in fashion. For example, AWS offers more than a dozen different cloud databases: Postgres-compatible Aurora; Redshift for data warehousing; DynamoDB for NoSQL app development; and so on.
There are a plethora of database management systems from which to choose. Carnegie Mellon University’s comprehensive “database of databases” lists 769 different available systems. You could deploy a different database every day for the next two years and still not use them all.
SingleStore CEO Raj Verma thinks there’s room for one more. “We fundamentally believe that there is a better way to solve modern data challenges,” Verma told me in an interview. “People think that’s an audacious goal. Yes, it is.”
Though a startup, SingleStore is not a newcomer to the market. In 2011, the founders developed the company, first known as MemSQL. It developed an in-memory database (hence, “mem” in the name). Last year, they rebranded the company to SingleStore with a broader vision and name to match.
When I talked to Verma, SingleStore had just raised its latest round of funding, $80 million. Hewlett Packard Enterprise came in as a new investor, joining Dell, Google Ventures, and others. They brought the total funding to $264 million. SingleStore pointed to a 300% increase in new cloud customers. Additionally, they showed a 150% jump in cloud revenue, though we don’t know from what baseline.
SingleStore plans to use the funding to raise awareness of its database — both among developers and more broadly across business and technology — and build its sales and go-to-market capacity.
Although SingleStore doesn’t use the exact term “universal database,” the idea is still the same. Its latest release, version 7.5, includes capabilities that give it the kind of workload-handling flexibility associated with universal databases. They include:
SingleStore is available for on-premises deployment and as a cloud service on AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.
