MaxCompute Evolution: From Launch to Global Data Platform - MaxCompute

Key milestones

In September 2009, the ODPS big data platform, which is the predecessor of MaxCompute, was officially launched.
In October 2010, ODPS ran stably as the first-generation cloud computing platform developed by Alibaba Group.
As of August 2013, up to 5,000 servers could be deployed in a single cluster.
In July 2014, ODPS was released for commercial use to completely replace open source systems.
Between 2015 and 2018, the platform grew to maturity with optimized performance and global presence. More than 10,000 servers could be deployed in a single cluster. ODPS was later renamed MaxCompute.
Between 2018 and 2022, MaxCompute V3.0 was released with better performance and 30% lower overall cost. Enterprise-class security improved continuously, and intelligent data warehousing and Hadoop federated computing features were released.

Awards

Year	Award
2023	MaxCompute was named a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for cloud databases and data analysis.
2022	The Alibaba Cloud ODPS all-in-one big data computing platform and data warehouse was recognized as a world-leading Internet scientific and technological achievement. MaxCompute ranked first in the TPCx-BB 100-TB benchmarking test for performance and cost-effectiveness. This achievement was maintained for six consecutive years. The Alibaba Cloud data warehouse (CDW) solution, represented by MaxCompute, was named a Strong Performer in the Forrester Wave™: Cloud Data Warehouse report (released every two years). Alibaba Cloud was the only candidate from the Chinese mainland. MaxCompute was named a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for cloud databases and data analysis. MaxCompute ranked first in the TPCx-BB 30-TB and TPC-DS 10-TB benchmarking tests for performance and cost-effectiveness. MaxCompute was showcased as a world-leading Internet scientific and technological achievement at the World Internet Conference.
2021	In the IDC MarketScape: China Government Big Data Management Platform 2021 Vendor Assessment report, Alibaba Cloud was named a leader and ranked first in the Chinese mainland for product capabilities. The Alibaba Cloud CDW solution, represented by MaxCompute, was named a Strong Performer in the Forrester Wave™: Cloud Data Warehouse, Q1 2021 report. Alibaba Cloud was the only candidate from the Chinese mainland. MaxCompute was named a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for cloud databases and data analysis. MaxCompute ranked first in the TPCx-BB 30-TB and TPC-DS 10-TB benchmarking tests for performance and cost-effectiveness.
2020	Alibaba Cloud was named a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for Cloud Database Management Systems. MaxCompute and E-MapReduce (EMR) were recognized as computing platforms with security protection, high stability, and high performance. MaxCompute was named a leader in big data management platforms in the Chinese mainland in an IDC MarketScape report. The Alibaba Cloud CDW solution, represented by MaxCompute, was named a Strong Performer in the Forrester Wave™: Cloud Data Warehouse report (released every two years). Alibaba Cloud was the only candidate from the Chinese mainland. MaxCompute was named a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for cloud databases and data analysis. MaxCompute ranked first in the TPCx-BB 30-TB and TPC-DS 10-TB benchmarking tests for performance and cost-effectiveness.
2019	MaxCompute ranked first in the TPCx-BB 30-TB and TPC-DS 10-TB benchmarking tests for performance and cost-effectiveness. MaxCompute won the Galaxy award as one of the top 10 big data products of 2019.
2018	Several MaxCompute customer cases won the 2017 Big Data Outstanding Product and Application Solution Cases Award. In the public cloud-based BigBench test, MaxCompute processed 100 TB of data at 18,176.71 queries per minute (QPM), doubling the October 2017 result. Its performance on 10 TB of data was three times that of other open source systems. MaxCompute was listed in big data services in the Forrester Wave™ Cloud Data Warehouse, Q1 2018 report. Alibaba Cloud was listed as a cloud service provider in the 2017 Magic Quadrant™ for Data Management Solutions for Analytics (DMSA) report released by Gartner. Alibaba Cloud, represented by MaxCompute, was positioned as a contender in CDW in the Forrester Wave™ Cloud Data Warehouse, Q4 2018 report. MaxCompute was awarded as a big data innovative product in 2018 at the China Digital Transformation and Innovation Case Conference. MaxCompute won a Top 10 Big Data Best Practice Cases award at the China International Big Data Industry Expo.
2017	In the first global public cloud-based BigBench benchmark test, MaxCompute processed 100 TB of data at 7,830 QPM — the first engine in the world to exceed 7,000 QPM. MaxCompute won the Gold Medal at the China International Software Expo. MaxCompute won a special award for scientific and technological advancements from the Chinese Institute of Electronics (CIE), recognized as the Golden Palm Award for science and technology. The core technologies and industrialization of the Apsara distributed operating system of Alibaba Cloud received the same award.
2016	In the CloudSort competition, MaxCompute won world championships in Indy (special-purpose sort) and Daytona (general-purpose sort) at USD 0.82/TB, breaking the USD 4.51/TB world record set by Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2014. MaxCompute broke two world records at Sort Benchmark.
2015	In the GraySort benchmark competition, MaxCompute sorted 100 TB of data in 377 seconds, breaking the 1,406-second world record set by Apache Spark. MaxCompute broke four world records at Sort Benchmark.

Certifications

MaxCompute received certification from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) as one of the first cloud-native data lakehouses in the Chinese mainland.
MaxCompute received the highest level (level-3) certification from CAICT as the first all-in-one data platform solution in the Chinese mainland.
MaxCompute received certification from CAICT as the first serverless big data platform in the Chinese mainland.
MaxCompute received certifications from CAICT and the China Electronics Standardization Institute (CESI).
MaxCompute received certification from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) as the first big data platform in the Chinese mainland to support up to 10,000 servers in a single cluster.
MaxCompute passed an independent third-party audit for compliance with the trusted service criteria for security, availability, and confidentiality established by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). For more information, see SOC 3 Report.
MaxCompute passed the distributed batch processing platform stability test performed by CAICT.
As a distributed platform for batch processing large amounts of data, MaxCompute passed review and certification from CAICT. More than 30,000 servers can be deployed in a MaxCompute cluster.
MaxCompute passed the first batch of stability tests for big data platforms in the Chinese mainland and was recognized as a resilient system.

Global recognition for advancements in the formulation of big data standards

Alibaba, represented by MaxCompute, is the only company in the Chinese mainland to become a special member of TPCx-BB.
Optimized Row Columnar (ORC) is one of the top two open source systems for computing and storage standardization. As a Project Management Committee (PMC) member of the ORC community, MaxCompute engineers contributed the most code to the community in the previous two years.
MaxCompute is an active contributor to Apache Calcite, the leading optimizer project in the world. MaxCompute has become a special member of the project, making Alibaba Cloud one of the two leading companies in the optimizer field in the Chinese mainland.