Cxo of the week: Deb Dutta - General Manager - Asia Pacific & Japan, DataStax

DataStax is a real-time data company that serves real-time modern applications with an open data stack that just works. Through the years we have steered numerous enterprises towards becoming data-driven businesses by helping them mobilise real-time data to build smart, scalable applications.

We also offer Astra Streaming – a scalable data streaming service and messaging platform built on Apache Pulsar – to enable harnessing of data in motion. When combined with Astra DB, the capabilities of Astra Streaming helps customers create optimised views of their data that is always up to date.

We recently interacted with Deb Dutta - General Manager - Asia Pacific & Japan, DataStax. He shared his views on how real-time data has helped Indian businesses and his entrepreneurial journey, the company’s growth, and much more.

Tell us about DataStax, its specialisation, and its services?

DataStax is a real-time data company that serves real-time modern applications with an open data stack that just works. Through the years we have steered numerous enterprises towards becoming data-driven businesses by helping them mobilise real-time data to build smart, scalable applications.

DataStax’s leading cloud service is Astra DB, a serverless, multi-cloud and multi-region database as a service (DBaaS), built on Apache Cassandra project. Astra DB enables developers to build and deploy data-driven applications at global scale, all while managing their data with the highest level of security.

We also offer Astra Streaming – a scalable data streaming service and messaging platform built on Apache Pulsar – to enable harnessing of data in motion. When combined with Astra DB, the capabilities of Astra Streaming helps customers create optimised views of their data that is always up to date.

DataStax says the future is being written in real-time data. What are the present business challenges that real-time data can comprehensively address?

A lot of enterprises are beset by data complexities and fragmentation. Their data is often stored in silos and scattered around in disparate technologies. This prevents their developers from gaining quick access to essential data to accomplish their customer experience goals. Enterprises need to go beyond just gathering, storing and analysing endless streams of data. It's imperative they activate their data in real-time to derive crucial intelligence for faster and accurate decision making and enforcing operational agility.

To be a leading enterprise, one must be able to extract meaning from data quickly and deliver outcomes and experiences to their customers. As businesses rapidly enhance their digital capabilities, customers have grown accustomed to speed and seamlessness in their interactions with a brand’s applications. For example, when you order coffee from Starbucks through their app, you want it to be ready within minutes. During this process you will be expecting real-time updates on the status of your order until it’s ready. This is the reality of the business-customer relationship today and in the future.

Moving forward, customer experience could potentially make or break business continuity and sustainability.

DataStax also speaks a lot about NoSQL databases as the way forward for modern application building. Why NoSQL and how is this related to DataStax?

Our Astra DB cloud service is built on the distributed NoSQL database, Apache Cassandra, designed to deliver high availability, performance, and linear scalability demanded by today’s high growth applications. NoSQL databases have proven to help enterprises cope with unstructured data, horizontal scalability and high volumes. If an organisation is dealing with projects that require scale, high throughput, low latency, no downtime supporting use cases like notifications, metadata management, customer 360, personalisation, Internet of Things sensor streams, Astra DB in the NoSQL category is the answer for accelerating innovation and time to market.

NoSQL will also help allay some security concerns. Most legacy systems are not compatible with advanced security features like multi-factor authentication or encryption methods. With NoSQL databases such as Astra DB, developers can be assured of secure data and privacy protection using encryption at rest and in motion, single sign on framework, Bring your Own Key, end point security paired with extensive technical support that can help prevent and combat cyber-attacks.

Could you share a few instances where real-time data has helped Indian businesses?

We’ve already got some amazing customers in India -- VerSe, Trigyn Technologies, and Fashnear Technologies, to name just a few. VerSe’s DataStax-powered technology enables more than 300 million users to consume content in their local language, driving creativity and connection through digital empowerment. It’s the platform behind India’s fastest-growing short video app, Josh. From a digital upstart to India’s first tech unicorn for local language content, technology has always played a central role in what VerSe builds and how they grow. Astra DB is a critical component in their platform to help scale the business.

What would you like to say to those with apprehensions about investing in real-time data?

If enterprises want to stay relevant and competitive in the face of rising demands for instant app centric experiences, integrating real-time data andinsight into their cloud strategy is crucial. It will not only elevate customer experience, but also improve operational efficiencies, reduce time and cost, and give them the competitive edge required to become data driven enterprises.

Any exciting future developments for India that you would like to share?

With the vibrant business climate and tech-forward leadership in India, the DataStax team is excited to partner with the wide range of developers and enterprises that call this country home. We are already in some amazing customer partnerships in India, and we’re only just getting started.

We have made significant progress in India in the last 12 months. In June 2021 we set up our wholly owned subsidiary and we have, since, ramped up our infrastructure such as increasing our partner network both in the private and public sector and building our sales, support, services and engineering team to serve our India clients better and help simplify and accelerate implementation of our solutions. We are assembling a very talented team in the country and are consistently on the lookout for rock star talent in all the above functions.