StreamBase eyes real-time streaming apps

StreamBase Systems, the brainchild of data management technologist Michael Stonebraker, is looking to reach new heights in the area of high-speed, real-time data streaming applications.

Although already in business for 18 months, the company is set to be formally launched in February. The company seeks “to transform real-time streams of data into competitive advantage,” according to a short description of the venture on the StreamBase Web site at http://www.streambase.com.

The company’s software, also called StreamBase, reads TCP/IP streams and uses asynchronous messaging, reading binary messages off the wire, said Stonebraker, who is CTO at StreamBase, in an interview this week. Version 1.1 of the software is shipping now.

StreamBase’s forte is speed, according to Stonebraker. The software can process 140,000 messages per second on a $1,500 PC, he said. This compares to relational databases available today that can only process 900 messages per second, Stonebraker said.

Initially eying applications such as e-trading and military systems positioning, SteamBase also could be applied to vertical applications such as discrete manufacturing, continuous process systems, fraud detection, and monitoring of bandwidth and quality of service, according to the company.

StreamBase believes that within five to 10 years, everything of material significance will be sensor-tagged. This trend will lead to dramatic growth of applications such as real-time, on-shelf inventory in retail stores and traffic monitoring and routing, according to a statement from the vendor’s representative. This amount of data will overcome the capabilities of storage systems. Data from RFID tagging is just part of the equation, according to StreamBase.

Not all data should be saved, StreamBase believes. The key is being able to take real-time action on the streams of data, not necessarily to store it.

Despite his background in database technologies such as Postgres, Ingres, and Illustra, Stonebraker noted the difference with his latest venture.

“We are not a database system. We are a stream-processing engine,” he said.

Also included in StreamBase is real-time analytics, he said.

The software is occasionally compared to offerings from companies such as Actimize, Apama, and Celequest, said Stonebraker. XML data streams can be supported through an XML adapter, he said.

The software is available via a subscription model, with pricing in the range of approximately $50,000 per year, Stonebraker said. Subscriptions are sold on a per-CPU basis.

StreamBase runs on Linux and Solaris and soon will work on Windows. Intel and Sparc hardware are supported.