Where is the edge of your organization? It might have been relatively straightforward to answer this question a few years ago, when the perimeter was somewhere between your internal IT systems, a handful of managed remote devices, and possibly a cloud provider storing some of your data.
Today, the landscape is different. Remote devices and workers are abundant, Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity is unprecedented, multi-cloud environments are becoming the norm, and users interchangeably perform data-driven work both on and off corporate devices and networks.
Couchbase, a provider of next-generation cloud and NoSQL databases, responds to the challenges of this new operating environment by giving customers a flexible, mobile-friendly, and scalable platform for managing their data. Couchbase is on our Top 10 Shortlist of Data Modernization Enablers.
Jeff Morris, Vice President of Product and Solutions Marketing at Couchbase, explained the Couchbase approach to Acceleration Economy. “Our story is so competitive right now,” he says. “I can help you save a ton of money. I can help you make money by going mobile. I can simplify your environment by taking out other databases, which makes your developers happier and the system easier to maintain and constantly drops costs.
“When I survey customers, I hear, ‘I bought you for performance; I needed you for the flexibility. I needed you for mobility, and I was psyched that you lowered my TCO all the way around’.”
Who Is Couchbase?
Couchbase was born out of a merger between Membase and CouchOne in 2011. Headed up by CEO Damien Catz, CouchOne was focused on issues around mobile, data synchronization, and offline use cases, while Membase technology was focused on performance and scalability. Once combined, the companies directed their efforts at building a scalable, NoSQL database platform.
Over nine funding rounds as a private company, Couchbase raised $251 million, and the company went public on the NASDAQ in 2021. Couchbase announced its fourth quarter and fiscal 2023 financial results last week. Total revenue for the year was $154.8 million, an increase of 25% year-over-year.
Current Chairman, President, and CEO Matt Cain has held the position since 2017. Before Couchbase, Cain was President of Worldwide Field Operations at Veritas.
Senior Vice President and CFO Greg Henry came to Couchbase after serving as Senior Vice President of Finance at ServiceNow. Before ServiceNow, Henry was CFO of GE’s Healthcare IT unit. Ravi Mayuram, former Senior Director of Engineering at Oracle, is Couchbase’s CTO.
What Does Couchbase Do?
Couchbase Capella, a Database-as-a-service (DBaaS) offering designed for rapid, scalable, and flexible deployment, is the company’s flagship product.
As a distributed cloud database, there is no single point of failure. This ensures high availability, while nodes can be scaled up or down on demand. Communication is secured through end-to-end encryption. The query language for Couchbase is SQL++, a SQL for JSON language; that’s important because most database developers share a common knowledge of SQL databases. Support for the JSON data interchange format means customer data can adapt to agile workflows and changing requirements. Multi-model support means customers can consolidate multiple data types into one Couchbase database.
Built-in search capabilities make it easy for developers to add this function to applications while vendor sprawl is minimized through various out-of-the-box functions such as Analytics Services, Query Services, and Backup Services.
Morris explained how Couchbase mitigates sprawl in data management, especially when compared to a multi-vendor data ecosystem: “I can help you reduce your infrastructure footprint. I’ve got the speed that you need, the capabilities that you need, and as you’re transforming and going more mobile, I’ve got the best mobile capabilities.”
He added: “We have the performance of [Amazon] ElastiCache and DynamoDB key value capability. We have the transactions covered in place of [Amazon] RDS. We have the speed of in-memory processing vendors, the flexibility of MongoDB and other document databases, and the search capability of vendors like Elasticsearch.”
“I can help you save a ton of money. I can help you make money by going mobile. I can simplify your environment by taking out other databases, which makes your developers happier and the system easier to maintain — and it constantly drops costs’.”
Jeff Morris, Vice President of Product and Solutions Marketing at Couchbase
Differentiating features of Capella include its managed mobile and synchronization capabilities. Capella App Services enables developers to build serverless applications that operate on and offline and synch from the cloud to edge devices. The technology allows developers to sync data between devices and the cloud, or between devices via peer-to-peer sync.
“Having a mobile client that works the same way as the server-side database, we can create a data mesh so you get the data that you need inside an application at exactly the right time and place, right to the consumer, let them process it and then bring it back into the rest of the environment,” Morris says.
All back-end processes are fully managed by Couchbase, so developers need only focus on developing and delivering applications. Capella also supports the storage of user-generated content such as images and videos.
“Couchbase is a great example of a modern database. It runs where you want it to run — cloud, on-prem, even edge/IoT — supports legacy and modern data types, handles both transactional and analytics workloads, and performs even complex data synchronization right out of the box. Couchbase solves many problem categories.”
Wayne Sadin, CXO and Acceleration Economy Data Modernization analyst
Customers Couchbase Has Dazzled
Well-known Couchbase customers include Marriot International, Pepsico, and Cisco. One especially noteworthy customer based on its use case is the UK fintech company Revolut. Using Couchbase, Revolut reports a financial impact of over $3 million.
Revolut struggled to combat the evolving ways fraudulent users were flouting existing detection mechanisms. They needed an application to respond to the threat, but it had to have high availability and high throughput to meet the demand of Revolut’s fast-growing customer base.
Revolut used Couchbase to develop its Sherlock fraud prevention application. The autonomous system consistently monitors transactions, and if any unusual activity is detected, customers are sent a push notification to approve a transaction in question.
Powered by machine learning (ML), Sherlock constantly updates rules and evaluates transactions in under 50 milliseconds. The system quickly caught 96% of fraudulent transactions, and within year one, Revolut saw a 75% improvement above industry standards, saving more than $3 million.
“For our customers, the loss of $100 can mean the difference between a pleasant holiday and an experience filled with frustration and resentment. Couchbase has never failed us or our customers,” says Revolut’s Financial Crime Product Owner, Dmitri Lihhatsov, in a Couchbase case study.
Why Couchbase Is a Top 10 Data Modernization Enabler
Couchbase enables developers to consolidate their data technology ecosystem, while providing fast, flexible platform that delivers major benefits to customers such as Revolut. Our practitioner analysts selected Couchbase for inclusion on our Top 10 Shortlist of Data Modernization Enablers because:
- Couchbase has a market-leading approach to mobile and IoT database management
- The company’s ability to support on- and off-line processing, as well as various synchronization processes, enables high flexibility and agility
- It enables users and developers to query in the industry-standard SQL language, streamlining app development
- Couchbase’s cloud-first, distributed database model directly addresses the core architectural preferences of today’s modern digital organizations
- It is delivering quantifiable benefits to leading-edge customers including Revolut, which in turn is supporting strong growth in Couchbase’s business
Which companies are the most important vendors in data? Click here to see the Acceleration Economy Top 10 Data Modernization Short List, as selected by our expert team of practitioner-analysts
