Samsung SDS Cuts Database Costs in Half by Moving from Oracle to MariaDB

For many of us, our mobile device is a necessity in our daily life. We have our priceless video and pictures stored on the device along with our contacts and other data. Thankfully, as smartphones advanced, so did the mobile device management and security within it.

Samsung is one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in the world. One of its subsidiary groups, Samsung Data Systems (SDS), provides optimized cloud services for businesses and digital platform-based logistics services. One of the cloud services the SDS team developed was the Knox Portal, an all in one workspace for Samsung employees. The Knox Portal is also known as Samsung Groupware.

We recently spoke with Hojeong Kim, Lead Database Architect, Samsung SDS Knox Portal Service Group after his OpenWorks 2023 presentation to learn more about why they needed to modernize its operations and development overhead and how MariaDB Enterprise Server helped their business.

What does your team focus on?

The Knox Portal has almost half a million users and allows Samsung employees to collaborate better and more efficiently through their dedicated workspace (e.g. messaging, emails, communication, scheduling meetings, receiving and transferring large files, etc.) whether on desktop or mobile given it’s a cloud-based service. My team and I focus on how we can best minimize performance issues in an operational environment and guarantee fast performance when reading and writing data. In order to achieve this, it is critical for us to have transparent communication between database administrators (DBAs) and developers. For instance, DBAs conduct performance validation for all SQL statements before they are deployed to the operational environment. During this process, if there are performance issues, tuning guides are provided and only the SQL statements that guarantee optimized performance are deployed to the operational environment.

Why did you start looking for a new database for this application?

It started with the need to modernize our Knox Portal by moving to a microservices architecture and open source software. Our overall operations and development overhead needed to be modernized.

What database did you use previously?

We decided to migrate away from Oracle and to MariaDB Enterprise Server. Currently, we have moved more than 80% of all of our databases for this application. We also have approximately 50 portal services used by our employees over the world allowing them to communicate, collaborate, transfer and receive files, schedule meetings, etc. enabling them to be serviced globally. Most of our databases and services are operated through MariaDB.

What results have you seen since moving away from Oracle to MariaDB?

With MariaDB, we’ve been able to achieve zero downtime upgrades and migration that addresses our business continuity requirements, which includes global real-time data synchronization with change data capture.

Our operating costs have been reduced by more than 50% since we migrated away from Oracle and to MariaDB. Furthermore, our migration was carried out without any interruption and we were able to maintain service continuity and stability for all of our customers that are part of the 80 Samsung affiliates around the world.

Why did you choose MariaDB Enterprise Server?

Choosing MariaDB was a great decision for us as we followed the natural trend of IT and open source. In the past, I was only familiar with Oracle but since using MariaDB, it has allowed me to expand my capabilities in the workplace. I’ve been able to broaden my perspective on new, emerging database environments.

I’ve used MariaDB database products for almost 10 years and have experienced many advantages in various aspects such as installation, deployment, and performance optimization during operation.

Additionally, it demonstrates excellent performance. With guaranteed performance, it enables us to provide better service to our customers. Lastly, releases and security patches are being transparently disclosed.

As an open source database, its greatest advantage is that it can enhance the depth of work for developers and DBAs. Above all, it can generate greater efficiency at a lower cost compared to commercial databases.

Watch the full presentation from MariaDB OpenWorks

Database Transformation of the Year: SAMSUNG SDS

This award highlights organizations that have bravely disrupted their own waters to reach higher tides with MariaDB.

As one of Samsung’s affiliates, Samsung SDS, needed to modernize its operations and development overhead. The team decided to move more than 80% of their services to MariaDB Enterprise Server from their Oracle database. And they were able to establish their own zero-down time architecture environment, resulting in over 50% cost savings and ensuring stability