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The “fictional” Pied Piper compression algorithm is very real

We love the adventures of Pied Piper – the focus of HBO’s Silicon Valley – which is why news that a compression algorithm similar to the one the fictitious firm uses excited us immensely.

The algorithm was developed by chief technology officer at Terark Lei Peng who developed the algorithm to try and speed up Chinese text input. That application proved fruitless according to a report by TechInAsia until the application was applied elsewhere.

That elsewhere is database compression. For firms such as Google and Facebook, being able to save space by compressing data can represent massive cost reductions. The trouble is making sure that the data is still accessible and searchable to avoid the need for additional computing power.

Much like the algorithm used in the TV show, Terark’s tech allows compressed data to be searchable and its faster, 230 times faster than Facebook’s RocksDB when it comes to random read speeds.

Terark’s work has already attracted a $1 million contract with Alibaba which will use the tech for Alibaba Cloud.

You can check out a short presentation about Terark below.

You might have noted that Terark is very different from Pied Piper esepcially in one key aspect: Terark is already profitable.

Unlike the fictitious company, Terark isn’t reliant on investors and has already attracted interest from US firms in addition to the waves it’s causing in China.

Let’s hope that unlike Pied Pier, Terark can stave off the likes of Gavin Belson and try its best at making the world a better place.

[Via – TechInAsia]

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