[IT Daily] Open Made Consulting is a data specialist company.

Founded in November 2005, it has been focusing on data-related consulting for 16 years this year. However, it is not widely known to the public. It is said that this is because it has been focusing more on engineering growth while focusing on data. It has developed its own solutions and has sufficient development capabilities, but it has focused mainly on developing consulting services because business creation is another area. Its main customer markets are the financial and public sectors, and it has mainly formed consortiums with SI companies to create business. Perhaps because of this, Openmade Consulting's consulting and technology services are known to be highly regarded in related fields. Through a Q&A with CEO Choi Young-cheol, we will answer your questions about 'OpenPOP', a SQL quality management solution that has been ambitiously developed over the past four years.

Development of Korea's first 'SQL quality management' solution

- They say it is the first solution developed domestically.

“Yes. Generally, it is recognized that DB quality management solutions can be replaced by DB performance monitoring solutions. However, strictly speaking, SQL quality management and DB performance monitoring belong to different software categories. Openpop can be said to be the first SQL quality management solution in Korea.”

- So what is the difference between monitoring solutions and OpenPop?

“Monitoring tools monitor performance or transactions during the development and operation process to provide early warning of risk factors so that they can be dealt with, and help with cause analysis when failures occur or performance deterioration occurs. However, they do not check the quality (standard) of SQL from the development process, verify the performance of deployed SQL to control deployment, analyze changes in the performance of executed SQL, and find and diagnose causes of performance failures.”

“There are many causes of DB failures. However, when you listen to stories from the field, there are many DB failures due to SQL performance degradation. The fact that DB administrators do a lot of work during their work is SQL tuning proves this. It is like a game of whack-a-mole. It is no exaggeration to say that DB performance degradation issues arise every day due to different causes, and that the main job is to repeatedly perform SQL tuning accordingly. ‘Open Pop’ is aimed at fundamentally solving such difficulties.”

- Could you please explain quality assurance in more detail?

“It is to prevent DB performance failures in advance by checking, verifying, and diagnosing SQL quality, which is the main cause of DB performance failures, and taking measures to prevent DB performance failures early during all processes of developing, distributing, and operating SQL. For example, developers cannot immediately know if there is a problem with the SQL they have developed. They try their best to write according to the provided development guide, but the guide is not that clear. Only after registering it in the configuration management system can the basic quality of SQL be confirmed. However, OpenPOP solves this problem. In other words, developers can directly self-check the quality and performance of SQL in real time immediately after development, and it provides support by notifying them of areas for improvement so that they can find and improve problematic SQLs.”

“For reference, OpenPop has 25 standard quality check indicators and 6 performance check indicators for SQL, and they can be customized according to the customer’s environment. Self-check is to check whether the SQL written by developers satisfies the criteria for each indicator.”

A significant portion of a DBA's field work is 'SQL tuning'

- I understand that 'OpenPop' has many functions to support all stages of SQL. Doesn't the more functions it has, the slower it becomes?

“It’s a familiar question. That’s why customers often ask if there are any implementation cases. However, OpenPop has already proven that there are no performance issues. It has been designed with an optimized architecture through 4 years of intensive research and practical application, so it does not put any load on the customer’s operating DB at all. It is currently being applied to KB Card’s product system and has been operating well for over a year without any problems. It is also being used in the U2L project of the Suhyup Bank next-generation project that is currently being carried out without any performance issues, and it is scheduled to be applied to Shinhan Bank’s U2L project as well.”

- I understand that the 'Open Pop SPS' function is also receiving attention.

“The function called ‘OpenPop SPS (SQL Performance Impact Analysis)’ is to check in advance whether the SQL performance of the current operating DB is maintained in the new DB environment when performing the recently popular U2L or Oracle DB 19c upgrade. However, it is impossible to directly verify the performance of tens of thousands of SQLs by manpower. OpenPop SPS is a function that automatically compares and verifies the SQL performance of the AS-IS (existing) DB and the SQL performance of the TO-BE (after new construction) operating DB, and optimizes the performance of SQLs with degraded performance, thereby supporting early stabilization of DB performance in the new operating DB environment. Utilizing OpenPop SPS enables complete verification of SQL performance without omission compared to the manpower-dependent method, and can also drastically reduce the verification execution time (period).”

“It collects SQL from existing operating DB, performs performance change impact analysis and optimization on the verification DB, transfers and applies the optimized profile to a new DB, performs performance change analysis on the new DB, optimizes again, and provides a final performance verification report on SQL performance after performing this repetitive automated process. In addition, OpenPop SPS provides a function so that changes can be made quickly and early without risk of performance failure by analyzing and verifying the impact on performance changes of related executed SQLs even when parameters or objects are changed in the currently operating DB.”

'OpenPop' is the only E2E SQL quality management solution

- What are the unique features of the ‘Open Pop’ solution?

“While some solutions only perform fixed code analysis using static inspection methods, OpenPop checks not only the quality of the executed SQL but also the execution performance along with the static inspection method. This method is much more sophisticated and efficient. In general, most solutions are mainly composed of functions, but OpenPop manages the quality of SQL through an automated process by linking each function according to the customer’s work stage and usage. I believe that OpenPop is the only solution that supports inspection, verification, tracking, diagnosis, and testing of SQL quality and performance according to the customer cycle from the development stage to operation.”

- For which customers is 'Open Pop' most suitable?

“The first is a client company that is planning to build a next-generation system or an advanced system and wants to thoroughly manage the quality and performance of the development SQL from the early stage of development. The second is a client company that is concerned about the deterioration of the DB performance of the current system, especially a client company that is continuously increasing system resources due to the deterioration of the DB performance. The third is a client company that wants to analyze the impact of changes in the DB operating environment on SQL performance in advance.”

“For reference, due to the nature of RDB, it is not necessarily the case that performance deteriorates in proportion to the increase in data. However, the necessary and sufficient condition for this premise to be established is the need for optimized SQL, which we call ‘good SQL.’ If you apply OpenPOP to places where there are many performance issues in the currently operating DB, you can immediately identify the problems through DB/SQL diagnosis. As mentioned earlier, three large-scale next-generation projects currently in progress (Suhyup Bank, Shinhan Bank, and Korea Post) are using OpenPOP or will soon use it.”

Meanwhile, Openmade Consulting has accumulated various experiences and high-quality technologies through its DB/data consulting-centered business for the past 16 years, and is known to have high trust from clients. Openmade Consulting has developed the OpenPOP solution and is challenging the SQL quality management market. The common view among experts is that Openmade Consulting's challenge is expected to bring about a major paradigm shift in SQL quality management.

Choi Young-cheol, CEO of Open Made Consulting

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