Ververica (a company founded by the original creators of open-source Apache Flink) is focused on unlocking the immense potential of data for enterprises. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Ververica CEO Alexander Walden to learn more about the company.
Alexander Walden’s Background
In his role as CEO at Ververica, Walden has drawn on his transformational leadership ability to fuel a diverse and collaborative culture. Continuously innovating and pushing the boundaries of data streaming technologies, providing unparalleled customer service, and fostering a vibrant ecosystem of partners and developers are other topics high on his agenda. Before embarking on his journey with Ververica, Walden’s career spanned various roles in IT architecture, IT sales, and business management within leading software companies, professional services, and Cloud providers across the globe.
Formation Of Ververica
How did the idea for Ververica come together? Walden said:
“Ververica was founded in 2014 by the original creators of Apache Flink. Initially named Data Artisans, the company came together to address a gap in the marketplace. At this time, there was no open source, large-scale data processing technology that existed that was also rooted in long-standing principles and architectures from the database and distributed systems fields.”
“Ververica’s founders developed open source Apache Flink and led Flink’s rapid community growth and industry adoption. Ververica’s flagship product, Ververica Platform, is an application manager for enterprises. The Platform enables high-throughput and low-latency solutions for event-driven applications. The Ververica Platform has evolved over time. Available for businesses in two formats, cloud-native (Ververica Cloud) and as an on-premise solution – enterprise businesses can choose what suits their needs best.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Walden explained:
“Ververica is available in two different formats, on-prem (Ververica Platform) and as a cloud solution (Ververica Cloud). Recently, we announced the launch of new Ververica Cloud features during our annual flagship conference, Flink Forward, which was hosted in Seattle this year.
“Ververica Cloud: Ververica Cloud, a fully managed cloud-native service for real-time data processing makes building streaming analytics applications easy and effortless. It gives your business the ability to develop and deploy your applications in the cloud without worrying about the underlying infrastructure. Ververica Cloud gives companies an upper hand compared to your traditional open-source Apache Flink because of its ultra-fast performance (up to 2x faster than open-source Apache Flink®). In addition, it offers fault tolerance, elasticity, and data connectivity along with the built-in SQL editor to create real-time applications for security, IoT, analytics, machine learning, and more.”
“Ververica Platform: The Enterprise Stream Processing Platform is available as an on-premise solution. For companies that require ultimate security and data protection, this solution gives you the ability to keep streaming analytics in-house. The Ververica Platform drastically simplifies streaming apps’ development and operations and enables enterprises to derive immediate insight from their data in real-time, with privacy. Also powered by Apache Flink’s robust streaming runtime, Ververica Platform provides an integrated solution for stateful stream processing and streaming analytics at scale.”
“In total we have four key products:·
— Ververica Cloud
— Ververica Platform
— Ververica Academy (Apache Flink Training)
— Flink Forward
Challenges Faced
Has Walden faced any specific bottlenecks in your sector of work recently? Walden acknowledged:
“A typical bottleneck in the software industry in Germany is to find the right people with the right talent. We have hence expanded internationally and are now hiring talent in other countries / bringing them to Germany. Ververica has more than 75 employees working in a hybrid setup in offices in Germany and the USA.
Evolution Of Ververica’s Technology
How has Ververica’s technology evolved since launching? Walden noted:
“Ververica Cloud is fairly new. In fact, we launched Ververica Cloud Beta in April 2023. Ververica Cloud became available in September (without billing automation) and will be fully ready for B2C sales in November 2023 during Flink Forward in Seattle.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Walden cited:
“2014: The founders created Apache Flink (supported by Apache Foundation) as an incubator project in March 2014
2016: Data Artisans launches dA Platform based on Apache Flink
2023: Ververica Cloud Beta launched April 2023
August 2023 – brand refresh for Flink Forward, our flagship conference, which is the leading event in the global steam processing community
2023: Ververica Academy launched
2023: Ververica Cloud went GA in September (without billing automation); fully ready for B2C sales in November 2023 during Flink Forward in Seattle
Customer Success Stories
After asking Walden about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“Here is one with a well-known leading North American travel brand, Booking.com:
Booking.com, a leading travel ecosystem serving both partners and travelers, faced challenges with processing security data streams and orchestrating Flink applications with stateful upgrades and multi-tenancy requirements. Their previous approach proved cumbersome and inadequate for their needs.
To address these issues, Booking.com began using Ververica’s Platform to overcome their challenges. The decision to choose Ververica was driven by our ability to enable Booking.com’s security teams to manage their own Flink applications independently, freeing up the Platform team to focus on maintaining the overall solution. Key solutions included:
- Instant short-term wins that reduced downtime and quicker issue resolution
- The ability to scale jobs, leading to operational efficiency
- Reduced deployment time and stateful upgrade time; from hours to a matter of minutes
- Invaluable support for Booking.com’s internal team, offering fast response times and access to Flink experts for guidance and assistance.
Overall, Ververica Platform proved to be an effective and transformative solution for Booking.com, providing seamless Flink application lifecycle management, scalability, and improved operational efficiency, ultimately enabling a more secure and reliable experience for their users and partners.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Walden assessed:
“According to Gartner, the ‘Event Stream Processing Platform’ Market will reach over 800 million globally. Our sites are set on the North American and European markets, with plans to expand into additional markets in the near future.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Walden affirmed:
“There are so many options for businesses in today’s world. With that comes preferences. Businesses want to be able to use solutions that can be integrated into preferred and pre-existing systems and/or run on any cloud in various deployment types and with a full stack of features (not just FlinkSQL).”
“From very private to public, our solutions meet these criteria. You don’t need to mold to us, our solutions will mold to your needs to serve your business in the best way possible.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Walden concluded:
“To grow and to establish Ververica as a trusted brand and to expand our global footprint.”
