Importance of Stream Processing in Today’s World

Industry observers agree on the compelling value of stream processing. In fact, stream processing consistently ranks as a top 10 technology trend in recent years. Although stream processing technologies have been around for a decade, there has been a clear change in recent times regarding their application in solving business problems. Businesses are no longer satisfied with knowing what happened in the past; rather, new use cases in advanced analytics are about predicting future outcomes.  

According to a recent IDC report, the stream processing market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.5% from 2022 to 2028. This means that businesses will expect more real-time insights, which will require data processing systems to answer complex questions across multiple data sources in real time. Any use cases that require actionable intelligence are a natural fit for stream processing.  

Stream processing and analytics allow users to continuously analyze data and identify trends and patterns in near real time that may not be visible with traditional batch analytics. 

There are two key challenges to the widespread adoption of stream processing: developer ramp-up and the cost of system ownership. The key question is: Will stream processing vendors step up to make stream processing easily accessible to all users?  

The answer is yes. RisingWave Cloud GA addresses this question with a robust feature set.

Areas of Product Feature Focus and User Benefits

When it comes to any major software release, it's crucial to clearly outline the design thinking behind the feature set. The RisingWave Cloud GA release is specifically built for production use and needs to cater to the end-to-end needs of stream processing use cases. In this regard, the Beta release laid RisingWave Cloud GA Release’s foundation.  

During the Beta version, the primary goal was to ensure that users had the essential functionality required to build streaming processing apps. However, for the GA release, we focused on not only early adopters but also other users with varying levels of capabilities. 

To this end, we followed three design principles for the GA release:

Ease of use: We prioritized ensuring that new streaming users could quickly onboard and gain value from the stream processing platform without any challenges. We wanted to create a seamless experience that would make it easy for users to navigate the system.
Production-readiness: Another crucial aspect we kept in mind during the GA release was enabling users to deploy in the customer environment of their choice with security and scalability. We wanted to build a platform that would accommodate different users' needs while also ensuring the security of their data.
Better Together: At RisingWave Cloud, we strive to make stream processing entry into data platforms as frictionless as possible. We understand that our customers have made investments in previous systems, and we want to ensure they can continue to get returns on those investments. We wanted to create a platform that seamlessly integrated with various data platforms, making the transition process as smooth as possible.

RisingWave Cloud caters to the needs of various personas who will be instrumental in ensuring the widespread adoption of stream processing systems:

Data Engineers: With an easy exploration of streaming data using web console tooling, data engineers can easily integrate upstream and downstream applications using the UI connector wizard.
Operations Staff: RisingWave Cloud provides elastic scalability to support unlimited data growth and comprehensive administrative functions via the Cloud portal, making it easier for operations staff to manage and monitor systems.

In summary, the RisingWave Cloud GA release is a robust platform built to satisfy the end-to-end needs of stream processing use cases. Our focus on ease of use, production-readiness, and better integration with data platforms ensures that our users have a seamless experience while maintaining the security and scalability of their data.

Release Feature Highlights

RisingWave Cloud provides a comprehensive package of solutions to build cloud-native stream processing applications. Its features span the entire stack, from applications to the core database engine and the underlying infrastructure.

Here are some key features:

Fully managed services

RisingWave Cloud provides a comprehensive and reliable managed service in the cloud, which includes:

Hosted service in the cloud. Users don't have to worry about managing the underlying infrastructure. As a hosted service, RisingWave Cloud removes the complications of configuration and maintenance.
Simplified cluster management. Users can easily manage their provisioned clusters inside the RisingWave Cloud portal. Get a cluster ready in just a few clicks.
Built-in monitoring stack. RisingWave Cloud portal lists all the clusters in either card or list view. Click on each item to track the detailed status of the cluster.
Enhanced performance and security guarantee. RisingWave Cloud guarantees data security through its full-stack data protection solutions, which are compliant with SOC II.

Flexible cloud deployment options

RisingWave Cloud offers customers the choice of deployment based on their needs.

Cloud-neutral platform. RisingWave Cloud is developed without a lock-in on any cloud vendor. Customers can choose either AWS or GCP as the preferred underlying vendor.
Various deployment modes. RisingWave Cloud provides either hosted service or bring-your-own-cloud (BYOC) solutions to adjust the local cloud environments without sacrificing the benefits of saving maintenance costs.
Integration with popular data sources and sinks. With the latest version of RisingWave, users can easily connect to more than 20 sources and sinks on RisingWave Cloud.
Elasticity and cost-efficiency. RisingWave Cloud is built to fully realize the potential of cloud infrastructure. By decoupling compute and storage, RisingWave Cloud achieves excellent elasticity and performance without introducing significant costs when the data grows.

Unparalleled user experience on the cloud

RisingWave Cloud provides a truly intuitive experience for developers and administrators.

Easy-to-use programming interface. With a standard SQL interface, users can quickly connect to data sources and manipulate streaming data using a query language they already know.
Simplified development process. Powered by RisingWave, stream processing is now as easy as database modeling and data engineering. Just write the business question in SQL, and RisingWave will create the pipeline in seconds!
Built-in web console. Users don't need to install a workspace on their laptops. just write the SQL and build the stream processing pipelines in the browser tab, right in RisingWave Cloud.
Low-code development toolkits. Creating sources and sinks can be as easy as filling out a form.