RisingWave is excited to officially announce the beta release of RisingWave Cloud. After months of development and testing, our team is eager to offer our customers the beta release of RisingWave Cloud.

RisingWave Cloud beta is designed to provide an easy-to-use stream processing platform in the cloud. With RisingWave Cloud, we're redefining how businesses handle streaming data, providing unparalleled scalability and cost efficiency. We invite everyone, whether you're a data enthusiast, developer, or business leader, to join us in this exciting journey as we unlock new possibilities for real-time data processing and insights.

In this blog, let’s quickly review what RisingWave Cloud offers in this beta release.

Simplified development with RisingWave Cloud

RisingWave Cloud is a hosted service that provides out-of-the-box RisingWave service for you.

You can create a new cloud-hosted RisingWave cluster and start building your stream processing applications in 5 minutes. To get started, log in to your account, follow the guidelines in the cloud portal dashboard to create your first cluster, and start writing your SQL queries.

After creating a cluster, you can build your application directly in our web console instead of connecting to it via your local client. Access the Console tab and log in to your cluster using your database username and password.

Inside the web console, we offer a complete toolbox for developing SQL applications, including a built-in rich text SQL editor, a database catalog on the left panel, a simple self-explanatory data visualization panel, and query logs at the bottom.

We also provide sample queries featuring simple use cases from the top right menu above the console window. We have deployed a demo environment; these queries can run at any time.

Want to connect to your clusters in code or using your local clients? No problem. You can still connect to your clusters in various ways. We support psql client and various programming language clients, including Java, Node.js, and Python. You can view the connection information of your clusters at the cluster detail page.

Managing and monitoring your clusters

You can manage your provisioned clusters easily inside the RisingWave Cloud portal. On the Clusters page, RisingWave Cloud lists all your clusters in either card or list view, depending on your preference. Click each item to view the detailed status of the cluster.

Below is an example screenshot of the details page of a running cluster. On top, you can do quick actions on your cluster, including stopping, restarting, and deleting your cluster. The configuration information is listed on the top right. The main part of the details page is a dashboard displaying the cluster status, including CPU usage, memory usage, streaming throughput, storage usage, network usage, and barrier latency. You can easily track the historical usage metrics and instantly see the abnormal behaviors here.

Aside from doing high-level management for your clusters, you can manage the database users for your cluster in the cloud portal. Access the database user tab to create a new database user, delete one database user, or change existing user passwords.

Improved feature sets, stability, and performance

Our team put a lot of effort into ensuring that RisingWave Cloud beta provides a stable yet performant stream processing service. RisingWave Cloud beta is based on the 0.18.0 version of RisingWave Database, which extensively improved its feature set, stability, and performance. Please check out our release notes for more detailed information. Apart from that, our cloud team has put countless efforts into enhancing the availability and stability of the cloud service. If you encounter any problem with the cloud service, please contact us via email or Slack. Our support team will get back to you as soon as possible.

Getting access to RisingWave Cloud

To access RisingWave Cloud beta, fill out the form on our website. We will send you the link to RisingWave Cloud via email. We invite you to sign up for your account and experience RisingWave Cloud, and we look forward to your feedback to help us continue to improve it.

Beyond the free tier cluster

RisingWave Cloud beta is free for all users. It provides an independent RisingWave cluster of 1 compute node, with 1vCPU and 2GB memory. The free tier cluster expires after 7 days. If you need to sustain it, please do not hesitate to contact us via email for an extension.

RisingWave Cloud beta offers customizable configurations. Contact sales to activate a customized plan. Please let us know your detailed requirements, and we will send you an invitation code. After redeeming your invitation code, you can customize your cluster configurations and keep them active without an expiration date.

From the margins to the mainstream, stream processing has rapidly evolved over the last ten years. This exciting journey—which many argue began long before Apache Storm came into being—has not been without challenges and detours. Today’s state of stream processing systems is undoubtedly a result of the continual evolution of stream processing systems from subsystems of commercial database systems to standalone open-source big data systems.

The role of the community in this evaluation is of no small measure in nurturing and growing stream processing beyond what was ever thought possible. As the community has grown exponentially around different technologies, it is clear that we are witnessing the dawn of what we call the “Modern Streaming Data Stack.” This is not a monolithic, vendor-led ecosystem but a shared, purpose-driven endeavor focused on driving innovation and interoperability between various systems, regardless of whether they compete in the marketplace. Stream processing can reach a wider audience by creating an environment where developers, designers, and users can share the best ideas and technologies.

To that end, we are excited to announce the launch of Streaming Stories. This platform brings together stories from users around the world; all centered around their experiences with stream processing. Through these stories, we hope to continue strengthening the community and fostering collaboration and innovation as we strive to reach the full potential of stream processing. We look forward to hearing your stories and hope you will join us on this journey!

As a startup developing the next-generation stream processing system, this platform provides an excellent opportunity for us to contribute to the community by engaging data practitioners and creating a space for them to engage in discussions about future trends and present solutions.

With a biweekly cadence, Streaming Stories will include:

Product-focused meetups: These meetups will showcase stream processing tools along with demonstrating their integration with RisingWave. They will be technical, hands-on events highlighting key product features, typical use cases, and prime business benefits.

Panel discussions and interviews: With prominent domain experts to spur the discussion around trends, challenges, and opportunities within the stream processing space, these sessions will offer a higher-level view. They will evaluate the past, present, and future of stream processing without shying away from discussing more controversial issues.

To better illustrate the topics covered, some of the questions we have been asking ourselves and which keep inspiring us are:

Why do we need stream processing?

Can stream processing replace batch processing?

Is it one or the other, or are we talking about a peaceful coexistence here?

What tools are vital for the popularity of stream processing?

What tools—existing or in the making—are going to shape the future of stream processing?

Finally, where does RisingWave fit into this picture?

In the future, the *Streaming Stories* series will also feature technical topics targeting new and experienced developers with a focus on solving specific data processing problems. The presenters will include industry thought leaders in the stream processing space. Attendees can gain an inside look into how industry giants like Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, Uber, and Alibaba leverage stream processing to derive maximum business value.

If you, like us, seek to learn more, join the next Steaming Stories event. You can join our meetup group or participate in the discussions in our Slack community space. We look forward to hearing your suggestions for topics and speakers, as well as how we can improve Streaming Stories.

We’re excited to announce that we have secured $36M in Series A funding to meet surging demand for streaming databases that enable users to make real-time decisions. This brings the total amount raised to more than $40 million. We plan to use this funding to accelerate our mission of democratizing stream processing technology that until now has been available to only a select few organizations. To learn more, check out this press release.

What are others saying about our announcement? Take a look below:

Streaming data processing platform RisingWave lands $36M to launch a cloud service – TechCrunch

RisingWave lands $36M to democratize access to stream processing and real-time data – SiliconANGLE

RisingWave democratizes stream processing, raises $36M – VentureBeat

RisingWave Emerges to Tackle Tsunami of Real-Time Data – Datanami

RisingWave Labs raises $36M for stream processing database – TechTarget

At RisingWave Labs, we believe in change — changing for the better. A startup’s journey is an evolution that begins with questioning the status quo. Ours was no different. We took on the ambitious goal of ‘Democratizing Stream Processing’ as our strategic objective. Given the nature of the goal, we started the company with the name ‘Singularity Data’.

Why Singularity Data?

Stream processing is the next frontier, and we are rising to the challenge. Cloud computing technology is continually rising; hence the system is called RisingWave. As the name suggests, RisingWave is the next wave of technological advancement encapsulating the latest progress in Modern Data Stack to address the challenges of data in motion.

Why RisingWave?

Stream processing is the next frontier, and we are rising to the challenge. Cloud computing technology is continually rising; hence the system is called RisingWave. As the name suggests, RisingWave is the next wave of technological advancement encapsulating the latest progress in Modern Data Stack to address the challenges of data in motion.

Why did we change the company name?

We decided to change the company name from “Singularity Data” to “RisingWave Labs” to let the company share the same name with the product. In the past several months since its inception, the company has grown, and we have reached some significant milestones:

Open-sourced RisingWave kernel under Apache License 2.0, a permissive free software license

Launched the private preview of our fully managed service, RisingWave Cloud. RisingWave Cloud can natively deploy and scale RisingWave databases in the cloud.

These new advancements excite us. Our company is growing significantly with our product RisingWave. We think we can make it more relatable and accountable with this change. We want RisingWave to be synonymous with stream processing. Having the company share the same name as the product helps us better unify the messaging. “We believe focusing on messaging is just as important as the focus on product differentiation. Keeping this in mind, we are changing our company name to RisingWave Labs. After all, RisingWave is at the heart of our innovation. And this change will allow us to stay close to our product and the RisingWave community,” said Yingjun Wu, the founder & CEO.

What has not changed?

The product is not changing; our goals are the same. We are on the mission of democratizing stream processing with RisingWave — which will make stream processing simple, affordable, and accessible to everyone. For our users and partners, this change should have no impact. If anything, this will make our identity simpler.

From the nascent days of open-source software, open-source mascots managed to establish themselves as synonyms for their projects/products. Tux, the notorious Linux penguin, pathed the way, becoming a worldwide synonym for Linux. The early mascot mania lasted for over a decade, turning into a craze for “cute and cuddly animals,” as incisively captured by Business Insider. During those times, the mascot family proliferated as mascots made open-source projects more relatable. That has barely changed to this day; open-source mascots are second to none at personifying – and personalizing – tech products and communities around them.

So, it should come as no surprise that we thought RisingWave too deserves a mascot that will add an element of fun to the often-intimidating world of stream processing. Who could better – than a mascot – convey values we cherish across a global RisingWave community? Who could better create the relatedness with our product and strengthen the sense of belonging among our community members? In the end, who could better showcase that the RisingWave community is more than code?

Jumping on the RisingWave: How of the Process

Before we introduce Wavy (yep, that’s their name, and the headline was a bit of a spoiler), let us share a word or two on how we came to choose our mascot. From early on, we knew we wanted a mascot that could brace our efforts to create a welcoming and friendly community. As cliché as it is, cute animals did a great job in the past, so picking one was a no-brainer. That means that Mozilla-esque types of dreadful creatures, overly local symbolism, and cryptic messaging wouldn’t make the cut. Furthermore, we knew that our mascot should represent a visual embodiment of both our product and values, enabling our community members to connect beyond code. However, little did we know then that the process would go far beyond creating memorable visual branding; it became the process of reflecting and questioning our understanding of RisingWave and our vision for its community.

From the very beginning, we were committed to running the whole process following two guiding principles:

Participation: we wanted the process to be as participative and democratic as it could be. Poll after poll, countless rounds of voting, feedback following feedback, and people speaking for their dissenting proposals was anything but a detour. It certainly took more time, but it instilled a sense of ownership and strengthened the team’s cohesion. It seems as if deciding on a mascot was not as serious enough matter that it became serious enough for everyone to take part.

Continuous iterations: We welcomed each version of Wavy, understanding how it brings us a step closer to the one that will resonate to the fullest with our vision. The whole team was engaged in sharing their feedback and helping the final version come to life. Today, we are proud to present Wavy v.1, but will be as proud to see them further evolve. The rumor says that Wavy will replace their fascination with yoga with cycling and may seek a more routine-driven life instead of their nomadic escapades. We can’t wait to see how the RisingWave community will receive Wavy and help them change and grow over time.

How One Simple Squid Became Wavy

Our Wavy is growing fast. They are one curious squid who loves exploring other data communities, talking to developers, fixing bugs, and showing up at meetups. If you are wondering, Wavy is doing a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes – they do some code reviews, comment on issues, and order pizza for our next meetup. They are brisk, cheerful spirit that inspires us every single day. And, yes, you will get a chance to meet Wavy – perhaps, that will happen sooner than you think. They may show up at our event booth, or you present themselves online with their quirky style.

After many rounds of feedback, iterations, and voting, our mascot was born. Now, it was time to name them. By now, you know that we named them Wavy. No underlying meaning, no cryptic initials (if one is wondering) – it simply resonated well with RisingWave, and we thought it was compelling. Some other name contenders toying with SLQ were rather persuasive, but Wavy charmed us all with its simplicity.

Even though we helped bring Wavy to life, many future choices will be their own. They are traveling a lot now but may soon settle down. They are one hell of a developer but also passionate about their hobbies – they love yoga, surfing (on RisingWave), traveling the world, and chilling at the beach. Wavy loves cooking pasta and hanging out with their fellow squids in their free time. As a matter of fact, as we speak, they chill on the beach and plot some cool new streaming database stuff.

What Now? Helping Wavy Grow Further

ur Wavy is growing fast. They are one curious squid who loves exploring other data communities, talking to developers, fixing bugs, and showing up at meetups. If you are wondering, Wavy is doing a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes – they do some code reviews, comment on issues, and order pizza for our next meetup. They are brisk, cheerful spirit that inspires us every single day. And, yes, you will get a chance to meet Wavy – perhaps, that will happen sooner than you think. They may show up at our event booth, or you present themselves online with their quirky style.

But before that happens, we would love to see how the community will see Wavy grow. We want Wavy to embody and celebrate our differences and our different understanding of where our community should be heading. What should Wavy wear, or what programming languages should they learn? Should they have a last name? What do they think of MDS and cloud costs, or what other mascots they should be hanging out with? If you want to share your ideas or merely check how Wavy is doing, reach out to us on socials (LinkedIn or Twitter) or join our Slack community. Can’t wait to see what Wavy will turn into!