Data complexity has become a significant challenge for organizations because of the sheer amount of data and the need to access data from multiple sources simultaneously. In this episode of TFiR: Let’s Talk, Tanmai Gopal, Co-Founder and CEO of Hasura, discusses this complexity and its impact on organizations and how Hasura Data Delivery Network (DDN) v3 is helping to address these challenges. He says, “Complexity kills productivity. So you need to have a strategic platform to solve the complexity so that people become more productive.”

Data complexity and its impact on organizations, including technical and people-related challenges

• Hasura is a platform that helps users build data access layers with GraphQL, which Gopal explains is the layer between the data systems and services or the data systems and applications.
• Gopal discusses the increasing complexity of data as more applications are being built as integrated experiences requiring data to be accessed from multiple places simultaneously.
• Gopal tells us that providing access to multiple data systems needs low latency, high concurrency solutions to enable multiple people to consume the data from multiple places.

Platform strategy for data complexity, including self-serve platform, API experience, and demand analysis

• A self-serve platform approach is needed to manage data complexity based on three components: helping data owners connect data to the platform, providing an API experience to fetch the data, and analyzing the demand.

Simplifying data access and connecting data sources for developers

• Hasura Data Delivery Network (DDN) v3 helps connect databases and data sources to the platform easily for API consumption in a self-service manner.
• v3 further extends the capabilities of introspecting databases by enabling users to introspect code, analyze it, and integrate it into the API. This allows data and code to be connected into the DDN, for a better API experience for consumers.
• Gopal discusses Hasura’s efforts to devise a developer-friendly pricing model that enables them to create an API on top of their data and code, and run it at any scale for free. He talks about the reasons behind this decision.
• Gopal highlights the complexity of data access citing the “n plus one problem”. For example, building a GenAI application to analyze billing issues for customers requires accessing the data spread across multiple databases and services.
• Gopal talks about how a GraphQL API can fetch and combine data from various sources and how the concept of a supergraph can be a potential solution.

Data-driven culture and productivity in a complex tech landscape

• Gopal believes that organizations must embrace the evolving cultural shifts within organizations to get value from data-driven solutions.
• There is an increasing emphasis on leveraging data effectively, both internally and externally while maximizing developer productivity.
• Making data available and utilizing self-service APIs and data marketplaces can help organizations move faster and remain competitive in an AI-driven landscape.

Guest: Tanmai Gopal (LinkedIn)
Company: Hasura (Twitter)
Show: Let’s Talk

This summary was written by Emily Nicholls.