December 2021 Summaries

Aerospike Kubernetes Operator 2.0 has been released, offering improved automation for deploying and managing the Aerospike database on Kubernetes platforms. The new version includes enhanced monitoring and alerting capabilities through Prometheus Exporter Sidecar, as well as additional features such as warm restart of pods, network and load balancing support, TLS enhancements, rack awareness, custom init container support, and more control over storage volumes and pod scheduling. Support for Aerospike Enterprise Server versions 5.6.x and 5.7.x, Kubernetes 1.20, 1.21, and 1.22 is also provided. The Operator is compatible with RedHat OpenShift Container Platform and will be submitted for certification.

The Aerospike Standup newsletter, aimed at developers, covers various topics such as CVE-2021-44228 and CVE-2021-45046 vulnerabilities, a scan bug fix in clients, upcoming events, knowledgebase articles, and release notes. The team advises users to upgrade their clients for optimal performance and security. They also wish everyone a happy holiday season and will continue sharing updates every other week.

SpaceCom 2022, scheduled for January 10-12 in Orlando, Florida, is set to bring together private and public sectors for new opportunities in space-earth ventures. Aerospike and Lifescale Analytics are sponsoring the event, with a focus on real-time applications and AI/machine learning solutions. The two companies will be located at Booth 108 during the conference. A reception at Cala Bella is also planned for January 11th, offering an opportunity to network and discuss industry challenges.

The Aerospike Standup is a newsletter written by developers for developers, covering blog posts, community questions, documentation, releases, and events from the Aerospike team. Recently, there have been concerns about the Log4Shell vulnerability affecting various systems, including minimal exposure in Aerospike. A bug has also been identified in the Java client that could cause incorrect application behavior during scans, which has been fixed in recent versions of the clients. The newsletter also includes updates on new articles, knowledge base entries, and upcoming events, as well as release notes for various clients. The team is taking a break to enjoy the holiday season and will resume sharing updates every other week.

On December 9th, 2021, a high severity vulnerability called Log4Shell was published as CVE-2021-44228, affecting JVM-based projects using log4j-core with version <= 2.14.1. Aerospike Database, written in C, is not vulnerable to this exploit. The Aerospike REST gateway has been patched in release 1.10.2 and users should upgrade immediately. The Spring Data project depends on log4j-api but not the vulnerable log4j-core. Apache Log4j released a new fix in log4j-core 2.16.0, as the previous 2.15.0 fix did not close the exploit. Aerospike Loader is a command-line tool with minimal potential exposure and will be updated in aerospike/aerospike-loader. The Java client's logging is callback-based and does not use a logging library directly. Skyhook uses Logback framework, which is not vulnerable. Similarly, streaming connectors for Kafka, Pulsar, JMS, Event Stream Processing (ESP), and the XDR Proxy also use Logback and are not affected. The Trino connector does not use log4j-core, while the Spark connector uses the logging mechanism of Spark. Users should stay tuned to updates from Databricks/Apache Spark. Aerospike's assessment found that all customer environments managed by them are unaffected by this CVE.

The Ad Tech industry is experiencing a renaissance due to the rise of digital platforms, leading to an increased demand for real-time data platforms like Aerospike. These platforms offer elastic capacity and predictable, linear, sub-millisecond performance, which are crucial for handling the extreme scale of data use and throughput in Ad Tech. Companies such as Criteo are using Aerospike to match advertisers' content with users' interests while reducing server count by 80% per year, resulting in significant cost savings and reduced CO2 emissions. As we look ahead at future demands in Ad Tech, real-time data platforms will play a critical role in adjusting targeting strategies due to the end of cookies in 2022 and widespread privacy regulations. Unlocking new identity patterns in real time can lead to new opportunities for targeting, promotion, and engagement, ultimately driving business innovation and success in competitive industries.

Embracing digital payments has become crucial for both financial and non-financial businesses to stay competitive in today's market. Gordon MacMaster highlights six key lessons for companies moving into digital payments, including prioritizing customer experience, sharing information, offering loyalty programs, utilizing real-time data, and viewing payments as touchpoints rather than transactions. Aerospike offers a mainframe augmentation solution that enables businesses to handle real-time data effectively while maintaining their existing financial systems. The platform also supports AI-based solutions for fraud detection, risk modeling, identity management, and customer personalization. By adopting the right technology and following these key principles, companies can successfully implement digital payments and meet evolving customer demands.

The Aerospike Standup newsletter, aimed at developers, features blog posts, community questions, documentation, releases and events from the Aerospike team. The latest addition to their Developer Hub is "The Sandbox," a platform where users can try out code in web browsers using Java, Python, Go, and Node.js. They offer sample codes and an interactive shell for advanced usage. There's also a tutorial on analyzing data quickly with the Spark connector using a COVID dataset from CDC. The newsletter is updated every other week, and users can subscribe to receive updates via email. Community questions include how to update the list of bins in ship-bin XDR parameter and high memory usage of Aerospike Server while performing UDF operations via aerospike golang client. Natalie will be giving the closing keynote of day 1 at GopherCon on December 7-11.

Aerospike Standup is a bi-weekly newsletter crafted by developers for developers, presenting a range of content including community queries, documentation, blog posts, and updates from the Aerospike team. The latest highlight is The Sandbox, a feature on their Developer Hub that allows users to experiment with code directly in a web browser, supporting languages such as Java, Python, Go, and Node.js. It offers code samples and tools like asloader for data uploading, along with a tutorial on using the Spark connector to analyze data, exemplified by a COVID dataset from the CDC. Additionally, the newsletter addresses community questions about Aerospike's features and announces upcoming events, such as Natalie’s keynote on AI-Driven Development in Go at GopherCon. Subscriptions for email updates are available for those interested in staying informed.

Aerospike's journey began with Adtech and has expanded to other verticals such as financial services and telecom. The company serves customers across various industries, including telecom, where it provides solutions for billing/charging, policy control, subscriber data management, and real-time/geospatial microservices. Aerospike's technology can be applied to other areas in the telecom industry, such as fraud detection and prevention, image and video analytics, online gaming, and product recommendations in mobile commerce. The company aims to replicate its market-leading use cases from non-telecom verticals into the telco space.

The automotive industry is undergoing a massive transformation, driven by the collection of large amounts of data from products and customers. This data can be used to drive innovation, improve customer experiences, and monetize services. In a recent webinar hosted by the Center for Automotive Research, experts outlined five keys to transforming data architectures: understanding the importance of technology in driving agility and speed; managing the growing abundance of data; using real-time decision engines to ensure compliance with privacy regulations; finding more ways to use data to enrich customer experiences and improve products; and addressing the question of who owns the data. The automotive industry must operate like software companies, leveraging data across the entire organization to transform the driving experience for users.

The next decade is expected to see a significant shift in corporate banking risk management, with an increased emphasis on analytics and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to manage current risks and make intelligent predictions about future risks. Currently, only 15% of a corporate bank's risk management staff are dedicated to analytics, but this percentage is projected to rise to 40% by 2025. AI can help banks strategize for the future, make better real-time decisions, improve risk modeling, provide better monitoring and prevent costly human errors. With more corporate banks facing unprecedented worldwide regulatory and market pressures, using a proven real-time platform to handle data quickly, reliably, and consistently will be critical in managing risk effectively.