Database Autonomy Service (DAS) provides features such as centralized management, batch management, intelligent diagnostics, and security audit. These features ensure your service continuity in multiple typical scenarios.

Double 11

DAS constantly provides and upgrades innovative services. This allows DAS to provide powerful support for the annual Double 11 event. DAS was initially provided as a tool-assisted diagnostics service to meet the requirements of database administrators (DBAs). The database autonomy capability of DAS is built and refined based on the Self-driving Platform idea. This capability has gradually served network-wide database instances within Alibaba Group. It allows DAS to provide multiple features, such as automatic SQL optimization, automatic space optimization, and automatic anomaly rectification. Hybrid Cloud Database Management (HDM), CloudDBA, and the autonomy capability have been officially upgraded to DAS. This integrates proven technologies on open platforms, such as clouds.

During Double 11 in 2020, DAS provided a more stable and complete autonomy capability to serve Alibaba Group and its cloud customers. The network-wide database autonomy capability was used to serve Alibaba Group. The automatic SQL optimization feature optimized more than 49 million slow SQL queries. The automatic space optimization feature expanded the storage by more than 4.6 PB. The automatic anomaly rectification feature rectified more than 90% of the anomalies for hundreds of thousands of instances in multiple scenarios such as e-commerce. This anomaly rectification capability allowed anomalies to be detected within one minute, located within five minutes, and rectified within ten minutes. This way, DAS ensured database stability and reduced manpower investment for Double 11. DAS also provided services to support sales promotion at each stage of the promotion process for hundreds of thousands of cloud customers. Before the promotion, DAS implemented health inspection, risk detection, problem rectification, and SQL optimization. During the promotion, DAS implemented automatic SQL throttling, auto scaling, and dashboard management. After the promotion, DAS implemented on-site preservation and summary. Millions of inspection reports were generated and tens of billions of anomaly detections were performed every day during Double 11. This allowed DAS to eliminate faults for nearly 10,000 instances by detecting potential anomalies and performing self-repair and optimization. This way, DAS ensured service continuity for customers during Double 11.

Centralized management

DAS supports the centralized management of various types of databases across environments. This allows DAS to build a monitoring and alerting platform that does not incur additional fees.

  • Centralized management: You can add your on-premises databases and cloud databases to DAS in 3 minutes to implement centralized monitoring and alerting.
  • Support for various database types: Relational databases, NoSQL databases, and NewSQL databases are supported.
  • Support for various database sources: Databases that can be connected to DAS include ApsaraDB databases, on-premises databases deployed in data centers, self-managed databases hosted on Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances, and databases from third-party cloud service providers.

Batch management

DAS provides enterprise-level database management to meet your business management requirements. You can globally manage your databases or manage them based on application groups or instances. DAS also provides enterprise-level features, such as custom dashboards, batch management, and inspection. You can also integrate DAS with your existing database management system.

Intelligent diagnostics

  • DAS implements 24/7 anomaly detection based on machine learning and fine-grained data monitoring. Compared with traditional threshold-based detection, DAS can detect anomalies in databases immediately after they occur. Then, DAS performs intelligent diagnostics and loss mitigation or performance optimization to ensure database stability.
  • DAS provides a closed-loop intelligent diagnostics service in which the effect of performance optimization is quantified. The service includes anomaly detection, root cause analysis, loss mitigation or performance optimization, effect tracking, and operation rollback or knowledge base contribution. This way, DAS ensures the service continuity of databases.

Security audit

DAS provides security features, such as high-risk SQL identification, SQL injection detection, new access source identification, and the sensitive data access discovery. DAS detects anomalies such as suspicious access to databases and data breaches immediately after they occur. This effectively secures databases.

Best practices