null

Messaging & Chat

Messaging and chat encompass any Internet communication that provides real-time transmission of text.

As mobile usage increases, messaging and chat have become ubiquitous. More than 23 billion text messages are sent everyday, a number that doesn’t even account for the billions of messages sent via other online applications. Some individual messaging and chat providers such as WhatsApp and WeChat see more than 30 billion new messages a day.

Within the umbrella of messaging and chat, support and gaming have emerged as leading use cases. When it comes to support, chat enables constantly available global communication, meeting the 24/7/365 expectations of today’s consumer. In fact, many consumers prefer online chat support to other methods of support and report higher satisfaction after receiving online chat support than after receiving email or phone support. In the world of gaming, chat enhances community building, score tracking, and strategy development, enriching the overall gaming experience.

With the message content alone, messaging and chat providers see a hectic amount of real-time data flow. Not to mention, they might also store message history, contact lists, or even picture metadata, depending on the application. All this data needs to be constantly available, and traditional databases just can’t keep up.

Database business requirements for messaging and chat:

  • Reliable performance across peak periods of heavy bursts of communication
  • Consistent availability, often 24x7x365
  • Scalability for historical conversation storage
  • Multisession capability

Aerospike is a good choice for messaging and chat because it provides

  • Predictable, high performance against large transaction volumes with a low latency
  • Industry-leading availability and uptime (five 9s)
  • Scale with low latency to handle increasing loads
  • Significantly lower TCO