How an Open Source

Cloud Data Platform Drives

Transformation
 Table of Contents
The Importance of Transformation 2
The Changing Landscape of Data for Business 3
Retail: From Fast Food to Quick Commerce 4
Consumer Services: Creating Transparency in the Online Marketplace 6
High-Tech: Network Monitoring Through Constant Change 8
Manufacturing: Innovation in IoT 10
How a Cloud Data Platform like Aiven on AWS Drives Transformation 12
Transforming Search Applications through GenAI Enhancements with Aiven and AWS 14

How an Open Source Cloud Data Platform Drives Transformation 1

The Importance of Transformation
Never underestimate the power of transformation. In business,
it is the force that allows companies to instantly respond to
changing trading environments and dynamic market demands,
and it drives the development of new products and services.

Transformation got us off our horses and into it’s an idea that emerges at grass roots and
cars — and is now making those cars electric. builds momentum. Most often, successful,
Transformation has allowed us to do our banking sustainable transformation comes in response
at home or listen to a symphony orchestra to the needs and emerging trends in everyday
while sitting on the bus. Transformation has society, driven by changing technology.
saved us from illness, enabled us to build safer
communities and connected us around the But always, transformation is the domain of the
world. And now we’re on the cusp of another fast movers, the innovative thinkers. And data is
wave of transformation as AI has the potential to its lifeblood.
help us address the most complex of problems
from poverty and climate change to healthcare In this e-book, we take a look at what happens
and food insecurity. when data, innovation and developmental
instinct come together to create thriving
What drives transformation? Sometimes, it’s businesses in a transforming world — and how
the result of a vision and strategy set out by an you might do the same.
individual leader or team of leaders. Sometimes

How an Open Source Cloud Data Platform Drives Transformation 2

The Changing Landscape of Data
for Business
No matter what industry you’re in, business open source data platform — such as the fast-growing companies to source, structure
transformation today will depend on your one that Aiven and AWS provide together — and analyze their all-important data and
ability to build digital services and software will provide a wide variety of the tools their deliver mission-critical applications in less
more quickly and at higher quality than developers need to drive innovation and time and less cost than traditional methods.
the competition, and then to deliver those transformation. And when we talk about an
applications and services reliably at scale. open source data platform, this is what we Transformation takes thoughtful strategy, with
mean: specific business impact in mind. Knowing
This won’t just earn you a short-lived period what business use cases other companies
on the winners’ podium. As we show in this A cloud-based, open source data platform are successfully putting into practice is a
e-book, the dividends from wise investments provides a set of integrated services great way to start envisioning — and enabling
in innovation pay off in plenty of different supporting all important data use cases, from — your own shift to a cloud data platform.
ways over different time scales. streaming data and operational databases
to data analytics and visualization. All That’s why, as part of this e-book, we’ll
We’ll also show why having the right tools services are fully managed and can easily dive into four of the top use cases, with
makes a difference. According to a study be integrated to provide business value at all real-world examples from customers using
from McKinsey & Co, organizations with levels of the organization. Aiven services on AWS, along with insights
strong tools are 65% more innovative than into how your organization can make the
bottom-quartile companies.1 What’s more, if that open source data transformation leap.
platform is a managed platform, it can
For many businesses exploring their accelerate the journey to a fully implemented
transformation potential, a cloud-based, robust data strategy. This is what enables
1
Shivam Srivastava, Kartik Trehan, Dilip Wagle, and Jane Wang, “Developer Velocity:
How software excellence fuels business performance” (McKinsey, April 2020)

How an Open Source Cloud Data Platform Drives Transformation 3

Retail: From Fast Food to Quick
Commerce
The way the world eats has changed to widen their delivery services to new All of this requires seamless, integrated, real-
dramatically. Just two decades ago, areas — groceries, for example — and time data pipelines. A cloud data platform
restaurant-quality meal delivery was still Quick Commerce. Quick Commerce (or on- can deliver the high availability, scalability,
largely limited to things like pizza and fried demand delivery) is a step in the evolution of security and compliance required to meet
rice. The projected market volume for food e-commerce and, as the name suggests, it’s today’s Quick Commerce business demands.
delivery (groceries and meals) by 2027 is all about speed. Quick commerce generally
$1.65 trillion.2 means consumers can expect delivery within This brings us to Wolt,3 a home delivery
one hour of placing an order. service that recognized the changing tides
The advent of appealing, user-friendly apps and rose to the occasion.
and tech-enabled driver networks, coupled Companies have come to incorporate
with changing consumer expectations, has and rely on a range of technologies to Founded in 2014 in Helsinki, Finland, and
unlocked ready-to-eat food delivery as a streamline their operations and manage now part of US-based DoorDash, Wolt’s
major player. The spike in demand during complex quick commerce ecosystems. home market in the Nordics was one of
the COVID lockdowns hasn’t completely These include the widespread use of event the toughest places in the world to find a
disappeared. The delivery services that were streaming, advanced analytics, big data, sustainable balance between customers,
such a lifeline at that time have become Internet of Things (IoT), smart waste disposal, restaurants and courier partners.
permanent fixtures in the dining landscape. supply chain management and more. New
technological advancements, like drone
The delivery of ready-to-eat food has to delivery and machine learning, help address
be quick. Mastering such quick delivery new challenges going forward.
has enabled many companies in this space
2
Statistica, August 2023.
3
Aiven delivers for Wolt’s business.

How an Open Source Cloud Data Platform Drives Transformation 4

 Wolt’s mission was to save people time by Wolt leaned into the technologies required to
making it easy to discover and get whatever make it in Quick Commerce. It adopted open
they wanted delivered straight to them, and source solutions to enable fast growth and
to help restaurant workers and partners innovation, and expanded quickly into new
to make a living. Today, it operates in 23 service areas, such as Quick Commerce with
countries and more than 250 cities. Wolt Market.

From the start, Wolt knew data would be Wolt opted for a modern microservice
a critical foundation for quick expansion. architecture powered by Aiven for Apache
And that its platform and technology would Kafka® on AWS. The maturity, tool support
make or break the business. It had to enable and interoperability of this solution were big
quick experimentation while remaining positives. Its teams were able to focus on
scalable, reliable and secure. And it didn’t building high-value business applications
want to waste time and resources building rather than costly and repetitive maintenance.
and managing its own architecture, since Wolt also benefited from the scalability,
any developer time not spent building an security, high availability and 99.99% uptime
application is wasted developer time. SLA built into the Aiven platform.

How an Open Source Cloud Data Platform Drives Transformation 5

Consumer Services: Creating
Transparency in the Online Marketplace
While Wolt focuses on the delivery side of the services like idealo’s enter the picture.
digital retail transformation, idealo has been
taking care of business further upstream From the beginning, idealo’s mission was
where customers are trying to find the best to make pricing transparent, so customers
prices for the products they want to be could make the best possible decisions for
delivered. their budget. As online retail has grown and
expanded into new areas, so has idealo’s
It is not just the way we eat that has been business. And like the online merchants it
transformed. The days when finding the best works with, idealo is dependent on fast-
price for your holiday, a new fridge or even moving data and a robust data infrastructure.
a party outfit for Saturday night took hours
at the mall are long gone. Today, the perfect Every day, idealo is in conversation with
jeans are a simple click away. You can tailor thousands of merchants, gathering
all the elements of your holiday without information about the products they list
leaving the house. You can even furnish your online. idealo then processes and analyses
entire home from the comfort of your old all that data, shares pricing, descriptions and
sofa. images to its website and its app, and ranks
everything according to price. All this has to
But this convenience also gives customers be fast and accurate. After all, shoppers want
a level of choice that can, sometimes, feel to see the best price now, not the best price
overwhelming. This is where price comparison of five minutes ago.

How an Open Source Cloud Data Platform Drives Transformation 6

On a typical day idealo will display more With online shopping volumes growing at an Today, Aiven manages around 60 Kafka
than 500 million offers from around 50,000 eye-watering rate, and with ambitious growth clusters and supports a number of different
merchants. On average, it has 76 million visits plans of its own, idealo made the strategic teams with an increasingly wide range of
per month in Germany alone. decision to move its IT infrastructure to AWS. use cases. A key use case is for event-
This in turn required moving 30 on-premises driven asynchronous communication
Of course that average can change rapidly. Apache Kafka clusters to the cloud, providing between idealo’s teams and their various
The run-up to Christmas is obviously an more capacity and better scalability to cope microservices. Some of idealo’s teams also
incredibly busy time for everyone involved in with spikes in demand. use Aiven for Apache Kafka® Connect for the
retail — online and in store. But new trends ingestion of data into its big data lake in AWS.
have emerged too. Black Friday has gone It also meant changing the way the Kafka
international filling inboxes worldwide with infrastructure was managed. idealo’s own The systems that underpin idealo’s price
special offers and exclusive drops. team had plenty of solid experience of comparison site can scale and adjust to
managing Kafka clusters on-premises but peaks and troughs in retail volumes — and
Keeping up with demand is essential for was less familiar with operating Kafka in the support overall growth as the company
idealo. Any loss of performance or, even cloud. idealo chose Aiven for Apache Kafka enters new markets and gets more and more
worse, any downtime would result in a to help first with the migration and then the popular with busy consumers trying to lighten
noticeable and immediate loss in trading. In ongoing maintenance. their own financial load.
that sense, idealo Is no different from millions
of other data-focused online businesses.

How an Open Source Cloud Data Platform Drives Transformation 7

High-Tech: Network Monitoring Through
Constant Change
Network management has been a daunting Some of the critical issues around network result, getting an accurate look at network
challenge over the past few years. The management include: activity becomes even more difficult.
COVID pandemic first highlighted and
then accelerated our reliance on digital • Network blind spots. Visibility gaps Networks are on their way to becoming faster
transformation as enterprises rushed to obscure knowledge about critical applications and more virtualized, and more network
remodel their operations. and service performance. They also hide applications are being abstracted from the
security threats which can impact customer underlying hardware. Network management
Since then, many knowledge workers have experience, revenue growth and brand and monitoring will need to adapt — and
found that hybrid working is the way forward. perception. quickly.
The cloud is the go-to platform for almost
everything, from back-office processes to • Shortage of skills. In 2022, Enterprise AI, analytics, and automation are also fueling
customer-facing applications. Management Associates (EMA) pointed to the change in network management (see
a new network management megatrend — page 12 for more about how Aiven and AWS
But where is network management going a shortage of skilled networking personnel are supporting AI). For these technologies
now? A global survey by Dimensional which is contributing to the lack of success to deliver on their promise, an increasing
Research pointed out the scale of networks with network operations.5 amount of network data needs to be
under management: 49% of companies collected, stored and processed in real time.
already have 50,000 or more networked • Use of multiple tools. Most enterprises In these circumstances, a cloud data platform
devices, while 73% of organizations typically rely on multiple network is the only option for businesses that want
acknowledge the growing difficulties of management tools, which requires high availability, scalability, security and
managing their fast-expanding network.4 administrators to cobble together data. As a compliance.
4
Dimensional Research Networking AIOps Report. Feb, 2022.
5
Network Management Megatrends 2022: Navigating Multi-Cloud, IoT, and
NetDevOps During a Labor Shortage.

How an Open Source Cloud Data Platform Drives Transformation 8

This is where the founders of NetSpyGlass self-managed databases and messaging offering. It uses Terraform with its complex
spotted an opportunity. solutions, such as Redis®, PostgreSQL®, Apache Kafka and PostgreSQL data backend
MySQL, InfluxDB® and Apache Kafka. to simplify service management. This
NetSpyGlass is a cloud-native network- allows it to support a range of the most
performance monitoring solution built It was a task that quickly got out of hand. popular device vendors. To further aid its
to replace an assortment of homespun Figuring out what solutions were needed, as transformation, NetSpyGlass has adopted a
network management and monitoring well as hitting the right benchmarks across broad selection of data-intensive features
frameworks.6 Started in the mid 2010s, the all of them to meet its SLAs, was proving using Aiven solutions on AWS, including real-
company built a popular solution that allows difficult. time monitoring and threshold alerting.
network operators to combine and automate
network monitoring — including those with Aiven helped NetSpyGlass develop, Aiven’s own service delivery model was
components from multiple vendors — with benchmark and manage a complicated data an inspiration for NetSpyGlass. The Aiven
powerful aggregate insights. That support backend, not just by shortening the cycle of deployment model is essentially self-service
across a range of the most popular device innovation, but by simplifying core service and NetSpyGlass wanted to follow that lead.
vendors has made the company a go-to in its management. The small NetSpyGlass team Aiven’s Terraform integration and extensibility
industry. found it could easily spin up services, run has allowed its offering to be easily tailored
experiments and spin them down again. It to fit each network manager’s unique
The company’s original goal was to create started using Terraform to provision a range requirements.
a data backbone for a highly customizable of Aiven services, and the speed of service
solution. And with only a small crew on provisioning increased dramatically.
hand, this was a challenge. It also needed Now, NetSpyGlass innovates with an
to manage a wide variety of on-premises, advanced network monitoring automation

6
NetSpyGlass partners with Aiven for simplicity and scale, case study.

How an Open Source Cloud Data Platform Drives Transformation 9

Manufacturing: Innovation in IoT

Since IoT first emerged as a concept some 20 strategies for action. All of which means that
years ago, the transformational potential of use cases that were previously constrained
having a network of devices communicating by bandwidth, processing power or network
with one another within the cloud has been agility, are now possible.
clear.
Founded in 2012, with roots going back to
The IoT itself has benefited from pioneering MIT research, Everactive saw a
transformational technologies: inexpensive challenge and an opportunity in the way that
computer chips and high-bandwidth then iterations of the IoT were running: a
telecommunication; edge computing; energy reliance on batteries.
efficient IoT devices; and the deployment of
5G, a high-throughput transport mode for IoT Batteries cannot power the IoT at scale.
data. They require manual maintenance, create
gaps in data due to their finite lifespans and
Now AI can help make data from IoT devices power-conservation techniques, and their
more actionable and therefore more valuable, production and disposal on a massive scale
while advanced analytics can use machine comes with substantial environmental harm.7
learning to mine the massive amounts of Using billions of battery-powered sensors
data that IoT produces, and reveal deep was estimated to undermine about 80% of
insights, make predictions and recommend the IoT’s value.

7
Everactive infographics.

How an Open Source Cloud Data Platform Drives Transformation 10

Everactive’s mission was to remove batteries and streaming architectures. When run on key feature, not just for protecting against
from the IoT and build an IoT platform that a cloud data platform, Everactive would get malicious attacks but preventing internal
used self-powered sensor devices and low- the scalable, cost-effective option for reliable errors. It makes it much easier to change
power wireless communication to make that ingestion and storage of data it, as well as the configuration and scale up without any
happen. And by enabling developers to build the advanced analytics capabilities. Aiven performance problems.
always-on, zero-maintenance, wireless IoT for Apache Kafka would also give Everactive
devices that generate more data than ever expert management. Another clear benefit is improved
before, it could achieve its ultimate aim of observability. It is easy to understand the
hyperscaling the IoT.8 Today, Aiven for Apache Kafka running on health of the system and to react before a
AWS is very much at the heart of Everactive’s problem occurs, which helps DevOps team
When Everactive constructed its first data infrastructure. It receives time-series data members sleep better at night.
pipeline in 2014, it started with Apache from millions of self-powered sensors and
NiFi and OpenTSDB. But it soon outgrew stores it in a PostgreSQL database where As for sensor installations, the time needed
this setup, and struggled with automation, customer systems can retrieve them. for checking signals has gone from five
performance issues and management. What Everactive’s Apache Kafka instance also minutes to one second. By switching to
Everactive really needed was a system that serves data to the monitoring system and Aiven for Apache Kafka on AWS, and easily
could ingest huge amounts of data and pass elsewhere because connectors are easily building new microservices on top, innovation
it into a time-series database for processing available. has become much easier and quicker at
— with plenty of scalability and fault Everactive.
tolerance built in. Everactive has been able to automate almost
everything — configuration, deployment
Apache Kafka is designed for rapid high- and maintenance — which has helped
volume throughput and is a staple of IoT accelerate development. Security is also a
8
Everactive relies on Aiven for IoT data, Case study.

How an Open Source Cloud Data Platform Drives Transformation 11

How a Cloud Data Platform like
Aiven on AWS Drives Transformation
Data is the core of business. The way We think that’s a far better use of their time
customers interact with your product, the way than spending cycles on setup, security and
service teams handle customer cases, the system configuration, not to mention the
way operations teams manage your budget — ongoing maintenance and reliable scaling.
all of these interactions are grounded in data.
As we’ve seen, there are plenty of reasons
When you need to scale up fast to handle for businesses to migrate to a cloud data
increasing amounts of data, a cloud data platform, especially where the management
platform like Aiven on AWS helps you do it is taken on by third-party experts. The
effectively and productively. It’s a completely customers whose stories appear in this
different data experience. e-book all had different drivers, even if their
end goal — transformation — was the same.
Our blend of product integrations, proven
open-source data services, and expert advice
creates the perfect space for customers to
build a data infrastructure that makes sense
for their business. We help them find new
ways to amaze their customers, solve thorny
ongoing challenges and create a space where
developers can experiment and innovate.

How an Open Source Cloud Data Platform Drives Transformation 12

 Here are some of the benefits Aiven’s open source data
platform on AWS offers to companies:

Accelerated Migration AWS Outposts Support Easy Billing

Aiven offers expert migration planning and Customers can easily migrate workloads Customers get a single invoice from AWS.
support so customers can bring critical between AWS Outposts and AWS Public Purchases of Aiven services through the
workloads to AWS faster. Cloud infrastructure without service marketplace also count towards cloud
interruptions at any point. spending commitments with AWS.

Drive GenAI Adoption B

Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) on AWS Security
Aiven for PostgreSQL and Aiven for Customers can deploy Aiven cloud Customers’ data and their data
OpenSearch® give customers who want services on their own infrastructure. infrastructure is guarded with dedicated
to adopt generative AI and ML the chance They can put their Savings Plans to use virtual machines, TLS encryption and
to seamlessly deploy AWS AI models to or provision and control infrastructure to VPC peering on AWS. Our service is also
Vector Databases. solve their unique networking and security compliant with SOC2, GDPR, HIPAA and
requirements. PCI DSS.

Connective Data Stream Support Uptime

To help customers unlock real-time data Members of Aiven’s core development Aiven’s services come with an SLA: 99.99%
insights, Aiven for Apache Kafka acts as a teams are available to answer questions uptime. That’s no more than four minutes
flexible, connective data-stream between and handle tickets to give customers the of downtime a year.
key on-premises applications and AWS answers they need when they need them.
services.

How an Open Source Cloud Data Platform Drives Transformation 13

Transforming Search Applications through GenAI
Enhancements with Aiven and AWS
What’s next? That’s the question that will be asked in any discussion of Aiven data platform to connect their AI models and training data to their
transformation. In this case, all fingers are pointing to AI – specifically AI ecosystem. AWS is also helping its customers to build and scale GenAI
Generative AI or GenAI. by providing enterprise-grade security and privacy, access to industry-
leading foundation models and GenAI-powered applications.
We’re at a pivotal moment in AI adoption. GenAI is going to reshape many
experiences and applications, and many of our customers are using the

Working together, Aiven and AWS make it as easy and practical as possible for our joint
customers to bring transformational prospects of GenAI into their businesses:

Better Together. Improved Results. Enhanced User Experiences.

Customers can seamlessly integrate Customers can leverage Amazon Bedrock Customers can connect Amazon Bedrock
Amazon Bedrocks’ GenAI models with to optimize their Aiven for AI query LLMs to a conversational interface
Aiven for AI Vector Databases to augment results and direct users towards better to improve their users experience,
their applications with powerful search contextual recommendations. increasing loyalty and driving customer
capabilities. growth.

How an Open Source Cloud Data Platform Drives Transformation 14

 How the Aiven Platform and AWS tools transform search applications
through GenAI enhancements

Aiven and AWS reference architecture.

How an Open Source Cloud Data Platform Drives Transformation 15

Want to take our platform
for a spin?
Book a demo with Aiven and get to know our all-in-one data infrastructure
platform. Find out how you can save your teams’ time and transform your
business.

Book A Demo

Want to know your potential ROI from

deploying the Aiven Platform?
Check out the Total Economic Impact™ of the Aiven Platform report by
Forrester. Discover projected cost savings and business benefits.

Read The Study

Apache, Apache Kafka and Kafka are either registered trademarks or trademarks of the
Apache Software Foundation in the United States and/or other countries. OpenSearch and
PostgreSQL are trademarks and property of their respective owners.