Key Topics from the 2015 Beijing QCon: Asynchronous Processing, DRC Data Replication, High Availability, and Cloud Database Operations

The three‑day 2015 Beijing QCon Global Software Development Conference concluded on the 25th. Alibaba Technical Support contributed four invited speakers who presented four topics, including a keynote, focusing on foundational platform technologies in the cloud computing era: DRC, high‑availability architecture, and database operations.

Optimizing Asynchronous Processing in Distributed Systems

Alibaba Technical Support Researcher Zhao Haiping (Fubei)

The era of big data in distributed systems differs greatly from the era of single‑machine databases. My code can be written serially or in parallel; are there other approaches? Asynchronous processing is a promising method. “Lazy first, no rush to execute, see the whole process, then execute.” Which direction should a table‑join order be executed? Asynchronous processing yields a dynamic execution plan rather than a static one, offering valuable optimization potential for distributed systems.

The Weapon Behind 57.1 Billion Transactions on Double‑11 – DRC Multi‑Active Data Architecture

Alibaba Technical Support Database Expert Fu Cuiyun (Yan Ying)

DRC stands for Data Replication Centre: it is a synchronous heterogeneous real‑time data‑flow infrastructure. Similar to Kafka, but it natively replicates to ensure highly available data distribution, based on incremental data.

DRC is not only used in Taobao’s architecture but also by Alibaba Cloud.

Minute‑Level Fault Recovery High‑Availability Assurance

Alibaba Technical Support Global Architecture Expert Liang Yaobin (Zhu Yuan)

How Alibaba achieves high availability is shared in this session, covering single‑instance failures, cluster failures, and data‑center‑level failures, and the solutions for minute‑level recovery.

“Speed is the ultimate weapon,” these solutions aim for extremely fast recovery, achieving high availability without difficulty.

Database Operations System in the Cloud Computing Era

Alibaba Technical Support Senior Database Expert Chen Changcheng (Tian Yu)

Database operations in the cloud era have unique requirements: large business volume, complex systems, and high service expectations. How Alibaba achieves high‑efficiency DB operations is shared, including the thinking and architecture.

At the same time, in the cloud era we turn operational capability into a service, such as the Cloud DBA product, an automatic problem‑diagnosis engine. Its operation, evolution, etc., aim to make databases easy to use for everyone.

If you are interested in the four topics above, click “Read Original” to download the related presentation PPTs.

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QCon, organized by InfoQ, is a global top‑tier technology conference held annually in cities such as London, Beijing, Tokyo, New York, São Paulo, Shanghai, and San Francisco. Since its first event in March 2007, over ten thousand senior technologists have attended. QCon content originates from practice and serves the community; speakers discuss hot topics for technology leaders, architects, engineering directors, and senior developers with more than five years of experience, sharing innovation and best practices.