The business technology company deployed MySQL Heatwave to drive client transformations, becoming Canada’s go-to firm for all things MySQL by joining the MySQL partner network.
Introduction & Background
Information Technology Solution Providers (ITSP) is a business technology company committed to offering high-quality, cost-effective business applications using practical and state-of-the-art technologies. Founded in 1996 in Ontario, Canada, ITSP provides integrated business application packages, application development, system integration services, and IT consulting solutions to clients in various industries, including retail, finance, manufacturing, and telecommunications.
In recent years, the company has delivered increasingly innovative, high-quality business solutions to customers in North America and China, positioning ITSP as one of the leading providers of technology products, services, and consulting expertise.
Business Challenges & Goals
ITSP was searching for a partner in the database technology industry to expand its service offerings to clients both in Canada and internationally.
It required a database vendor that offered a cost-effective, cloud-based solution capable of improving the performance of its various business applications, while also providing world-class security to meet the demands of its diverse enterprise clients.
To enhance its competitiveness, ITSP also needed to upgrade the skillsets of its tech employees. Therefore, it sought a database vendor with a strong partner support network in order to optimize knowledge transfer.
Business Results & Metrics
ITSP successfully implemented MySQL HeatWave to greatly enhance application performance, significantly reduce costs, simplify configuration and management, as well as provide a unified database for transaction processing, analytics, and machine learning on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).
ITSP provides consulting and support services, that drive the success of MySQL deployments and delivers unparalleled operational efficiencies for ITSP’s wide range of clients.
With MySQL HeatWave, ITSP and its clients achieved major cost reductions, saving approximately 33% compared to other RDBMS vendors on the market.
The business technology company experienced 80x to 100x faster in-memory query performance with MySQL HeatWave compared to its MySQL Community version. The cloud-based solution provided much more powerful database storage with parallel processing capabilities for mission-critical, high-volume transactions across ITSP’s various real-time and online business applications.
Analytics has been dramatically accelerated. ITSP can now analyze factors such as application type, engineer resume, client region, and project team travel costs. Instead of spending an entire day consolidating data, ITSP can perform these calculations in a fraction of the time. Additionally, the generation of reports has been expedited, and ITSP can now gain deeper insights from complex data sets using MySQL HeatWave Machine Learning. This enables the production of advanced reports for AI-driven decision-making.
By leveraging the sophisticated analytics capabilities of MySQL HeatWave, ITSP has created real-time dashboards that provide clients with immediate insights into their sales activities. This is particularly valuable for clients in the food and retail sectors, as they can make rapid inventory management and workforce planning decisions rather than having to wait for end-of-day reports.
The close partnership with the MySQL team has enabled ITSP to better understand and address the various challenges faced by their clients, making them the go-to source for MySQL deployments and support services in Canada and beyond. For instance, when a major global retail client faced bankruptcy at its US headquarters, ITSP was able to safeguard the client's Canadian operations by deploying MySQL Enterprise Edition and uploading the Canadian-specific data within a tight 21-day deadline.
ITSP has also played a crucial role in assisting a Canadian bank with a complex upgrade of MySQL. This involved transitioning from version 5.5 to 8.0 Enterprise Edition, including the conversion of a staggering 30 terabytes of critical production data over a single weekend. The onsite consulting expertise provided by ITSP was vital in planning a roadmap and ensuring the successful upgrade from MySQL 5.6 to 8.0 for a prominent Canadian loyalty program company. This included implementing and setting up an InnoDB Cluster to optimize performance and reliability.
“With the MySQL and Oracle teams behind us, we can do so much more than our competitors regarding the big implementations that deal with millions and millions of transactions. Furthermore, we now have the knowledge and experience to showcase to potential clients the unmatched excellence of MySQL compared to Sybase, DB2, MS SQL Server, and other databases,” said Wenjin Zhou.
MySQL HeatWave provided ITSP with advanced security features and encryption mechanisms to guard the highly sensitive data employed by its clients, such as those in the banking and finance sectors. The company also ensured high data availability for real-time and transaction-intense applications by utilizing MySQL HeatWave’s active-active data replication. This strategy entailed distributing data across multiple regions to maintain uninterrupted operations, even during a regional outage.
Why MySQL HeatWave?
ITSP chose MySQL HeatWave due to the superior performance. ITSP was highly impressed with the combination of transaction processing, analytics, and machine learning in a single database, along with the solution's ease of management. Its cost-effectiveness compared to competing solutions also made it a compelling choice, while its adaptability to different use cases and the ability to support real-time applications aligned perfectly with ITSP's diverse portfolio.
Selecting MySQL HeatWave was a strategic move that unlocked a world of advantages. By joining MySQL’s Partner Network, the company was able to gain access to partner support, product management, and local assistance from the MySQL Support and Consulting team.
“MySQL embodies the technological prowess and strategic vision that we rely on to drive innovation, overcome challenges, and deliver exceptional value to our clients. With parallel processing, efficient aggregation, and transactional control, MySQL HeatWave’s blend of cutting-edge features, cost-effectiveness, and robust support forms the bedrock of ITSP's success,” Wenjin Zhou said.
Next Steps
Demonstrating ITSP's accomplishments with MySQL HeatWave, the company made a strategic decision to build all new business applications using MySQL in order to expand its customer base in North America and Europe and to emphasize cloud implementations.