Why Is A Satellite Company Using A Financial Database?
By Shannon Levy, McObject
Speed and reliability are the highest priorities for ViaSat (NASDAQ: VSAT) as they implement a new physical layer satellite debugging application known as the Data Metric Aggregation System (DMAS) project. DMAS ingests metrics feeds from satellite ground-system elements at a very high rate and conducts analysis of the data to identify trends and abnormalities to help enhance network speed, quality and reliability.
Phil Lampe, Senior Program Director at ViaSat, said, “Once we launch the ViaSat-2 and ViaSat-3 satellite programs we expect to see a significant increase in metric volumes and flow rates. Therefore, finding a partner that understood our metrics data needs was critical. After a stringent review process, we selected eXtremeDB because of its scalability; outstanding performance due to its sharding capability; and our confidence in McObject’s ability to offer a solid support team.”
They tested the eXtremeDB Financial Edition, as well as other database management systems, for well over a year before finally selecting eXtremeDB to meet their needs. Today, approximately 1 million metric entries per second are captured from the ViaSat ground system using eXtremeDB. They are starting small and expect it to scale exponentionally. DMAS, using eXtremeDB’s capabilities, will significantly improve the flow rate, performance and quality of the metrics data. Analytics performed on the DMAS data can then be leveraged across market segments and geographic regions of the ViaSat network.
Steve Graves, CEO and co-founder of McObject, commented: “The ViaSat DMAS project is of major importance to us and to our wider client base. Independent testing by the Securities Technology Analysis Center (STAC®) has shown eXtremeDB to be a fast and scalable time series data management solution for very high data volumes, which was a key element of the ViaSat evaluation process. I am also particularly proud that one of the reasons ViaSat chose us was the excellence of our support team.”