Elevate modern apps with TiDB.
Author: Black Key, Head of IT at GMGN
Executive Summary
GMGN, a Web3 multi-chain trading insights platform, transitioned from AWS Aurora to TiDB Cloud to address scalability, data querying, and agility challenges. The two-week migration simplified GMGN’s architecture, reduced operational costs by 50%, and improved query performance.
TiDB‘s horizontal scaling and MySQL compatibility enabled seamless growth and faster data processing without code changes. With TiDB, GMGN enhanced its real-time data insights, improved user experience, and achieved 30% greater business agility.
Company Overview
GMGN is a leading platform for real-time multi-chain trading discovery and insights in the Web3 space. It supports major blockchains such as ETH, Solana, Base, and Blast. Through GMGN, users gain real-time visibility into on-chain data, enabling them to better understand and leverage it for informed decision-making.
The name GMGN stands for “Good Morning Good Night,” a common Web3 greeting that embodies the friendly and positive spirit of the Web3 community. GMGN aims to enhance user experience and foster a better community environment within the Web3 ecosystem.
Challenge
Initial Scenario
At GMGN, we aim to provide a real-time, multi-chain data insight platform with extensive data storage and querying capabilities. Previously, we used AWS Aurora for MySQL for our data storage and querying, but we encountered several challenges:
- Scalability: As Web3 data and user numbers rapidly increased, our existing database struggled to scale effectively.
- Data Querying Capability: With the large volume of Web3 data, complex queries using Amazon Aurora were not performing well, highlighting the need for a system that can handle extensive data queries quickly and accurately.
- Agility: Our rapid business growth required maintaining multiple database instances, compromising our business agility and adaptability.
Original Data Architecture
In the initial plan, we used multiple MySQL RDS or Aurora MySQL relational databases to store many real-time transaction records and smart contract data. We then integrated and pre-processed the data through an application. This architecture could support our business growth in the early stages, but as the business expanded, we faced a series of issues related to the growing data.
Solution
Implementation
To overcome these challenges, we implemented TiDB Cloud’s online migration tools and dual-write methods, which revamped the entire architecture in about two weeks. We consolidated all Aurora MySQL databases into a single TiDB cloud solution. eliminating concerns about future database needs and simplified data processing. This made it easy to handle complex cross-database tasks.
As our business expands and cluster pressure rises, we can effortlessly handle it by assessing overall capacity and performing linear scaling as needed. Moreover, large data processing requirements are now easily met with a few simple SQL queries using HTAP capabilities, freeing us from concerns about data synchronization, cleansing, and other processing issues.
Solution Data Architecture
Results
Key benefits TiDB brings to GMGN
By transitioning to TiDB for our data storage, we reduced data management and development costs while increasing efficiency. The key benefits we’ve seen include:
- Simplified Architecture: Replacing multiple database clusters with a single TiDB instance reduced operational complexity and costs, cutting our management expenses by 50%.
- Strong Computing Capabilities： TiDB has enhanced our platform with its compute-storage separation and pushdown capabilities. This allows us to execute complex SQL queries and obtain results quickly, significantly improving performance and enabling us to handle demanding data operations effectively.
- MySQL Compatibility: TiDB’s native compatibility with MySQL means no code changes were needed, preserving existing workflows and avoiding additional learning costs.
- Rapid Scalability: TiDB’s horizontal scaling capability allows for seamless expansion to handle rapid data and user growth without compromising performance.
- Focus on Business Development: TiDB Cloud, a fully managed SaaS service, eliminates the need for database maintenance and operational concerns. With PingCAP’s professional support, we can address issues quickly, ensuring swift and stable business operations. This has improved our business development agility by 30%.
Conclusion
By migrating to TiDB Cloud, we significantly streamlined our operations, reducing costs by 50% and enhancing performance. With TiDB’s horizontal scalability, MySQL compatibility, and HTAP capabilities, we improved our real-time data insights and multi-chain data queries while lowering costs. This transition allowed us to overcome the scalability and querying challenges we faced with AWS Aurora, enabling us to deliver faster, more convenient, and higher-quality services.
The improved architecture has boosted our business agility by 30%, empowering us to focus on growth, ensuring a superior user experience, and maintaining our competitive edge in the Web3 space.
