DataStax targets Asia-Pacific growth with setting up of regional HQ in Singapore

DataStax announced today the opening of a new regional APAC office in Singapore. This expansion reinforces its commitment to the Asia-Pacific (APAC) market and enables the company to meet the growing global demand for Astra, its signature database-as-a-service (DBaaS).

Touted by DataStax as an open data stack for modern data apps, Astra is a solution built on Apache Cassandra, an open-source NoSQL database.

Cassandra is known for its ability to handle huge amounts of data distributed across multiple nodes, reliability, and lightning-fast access. It is the first serverless deployment based on Apache Cassandra that works on all three major public clouds.

First developed by Facebook to power its inbox search feature, Cassandra is currently deployed by many of the largest tech firms such as Apple, Instagram, Spotify, and Netflix, among others.

DataStax recently received an undisclosed amount of new funding from Goldman Sachs, driving its entry into APAC as part of a strategic move to tap into the market opportunity here.

According to a Research and Markets report, APAC is projected to have the highest growth rate for the cloud database and DBaaS market over the forecast period of 2020 to 2025.

DataStax also announced the hire of Deb Dutta, who joins the company as general manager of the APAC region.

An industry veteran with over 25 years of experience driving strategy, growth, marketing, operations, and organisation buildout, Dutta previously held leadership positions with global enterprise technology leaders, including McAfee, Brocade, and Juniper Networks. 

Dutta will be responsible for building the team, expanding enterprise engagements, strategic partnerships, and accelerating DataStax's growth across APAC.

"I am thrilled to join DataStax to help connect developers and enterprises in APAC to the power of Apache Cassandra by engaging, enabling, and empowering them," said Dutta.

Aaron Morton will support DataStax in their APAC push as the new Field Chief Technology Officer for the region. Morton is an Apache Cassandra veteran, having contributed to the Apache Cassandra project since 2010 and is one of the first consultants in the world.

He is a committer and a member of the Project Management Committee (PMC) for Apache Cassandra.

Astra is available as a serverless solution that lets users get started quickly without the need to specify or provision a set capacity of nodes.

Customers pay only for what they use and can opt to have nodes deployed within Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure - or a mix of all three. 

"DataStax continues to see rapid adoption of Cassandra in a form factor which is easy to operate, developer ready, cloud-delivered and presents a dramatic reduction in the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)," said Dutta.  

DataStax's customers in Singapore include fintech Endowus and international banking corporation SC Ventures (Nexus). Suresh Khatri, Head of Engineering, SC Ventures (Nexus) said: "With more than 750 branches worldwide and a presence in 59 markets, SC Ventures (Nexus) relies on DataStax to help provide a secure, distributed database infrastructure. As we further develop our digital banking platform and banking as a service offering, the solution allows us to leverage Stargate API gateways to catalyse financial services innovation."