MaxCompute is used across industries to process big data at scale. The following cases show how companies in data intelligence, e-commerce, social media, finance, and logistics have used MaxCompute to cut costs and accelerate analytics.
For a complete list of MaxCompute customer use cases, see Industry Customer Use Cases.
UMENG+
Industry: Data intelligence | Challenge: Unified analytics across siloed systems
UMENG+ is an independent, third-party provider of comprehensive data intelligence services. Using its technology, algorithms, and extensive data resources, it identifies audience tags and develops analytics metrics that help businesses gain deep user insights, make real-time decisions, and drive continuous growth.
The challenge
UMENG+ faced two core problems. First, its clients' data lived in separate systems that were difficult to combine for unified analysis. Second, its business intelligence (BI) analytics systems struggled to balance flexibility with business usability.
The solution
UMENG+ partnered with MaxCompute to build a developer data bank. The data bank powers a self-service analytics service called U-DOP Data Accessibility, which combines UMENG+'s domain data with each client's private data. The service subscribes to data packets and returns them to MaxCompute, where clients use pre-built analytics templates and visual analytics BI tools to run queries without custom engineering work.
The result is a flexible, one-stop analytics capability.
For more information about this use case, see UMENG+ Use Case.
E-commerce use case: Wanwudezhi
Industry: E-commerce | Scale: Up to 6 million monthly active users
Wanwudezhi is a mobile platform for trading cultural crafts, obtaining online expert appraisals, and connecting with a community centered on traditional Chinese culture. The platform offers three core services—live streaming, auctions, and fixed-price sales—and uses an "appraise first, then ship" model to create a transparent, healthy, and safe environment for buyers.
The challenge
Rapid business growth pushed Wanwudezhi to migrate its existing MySQL system to the cloud and build a modern research and development (R&D) platform using Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings. The goals: improve developer efficiency and reduce labor costs without slowing product velocity.
The solution
Wanwudezhi built its big data platform on Alibaba Cloud DataWorks and MaxCompute. MaxCompute and DataWorks handle storage and computing at the core, while upper-layer tools provide visualization and business query capabilities. The team extended the open-source components with custom development to fit their specific workflows.
For more information about this use case, see Wanwudezhi Use Case.
Internet social media use case: Xiaodaka
Industry: Social media | Scale: Millions of daily active users, terabytes of data generated
Xiaodaka is an interest-based community app that brings together groups focused on painting, yoga, fitness, photography, parenting, reading, and collectible toys. It helps users find communities where they can share and grow—at a scale that produces terabytes of data.
The challenge
Xiaodaka needed a data warehouse that supported agile development and could scale with the business, while keeping infrastructure costs and operations and maintenance (O&M) overhead as low as possible.
The solution
Building the data warehouse on Alibaba Cloud MaxCompute delivered a strong cost-performance ratio from the start. A single developer brought the warehouse online quickly and at very low cost.
For more information about this use case, see Xiaodaka Use Case.
Internet finance use case: Tianhong Asset Management
Industry: Financial services | Key result: Transaction data processing time reduced from 8 hours to 1.5 hours
Tianhong Asset Management is China's largest mutual fund by total assets and aims to be the leading provider of index fund services. In partnership with Alipay, Tianhong launched Yu'e Bao.
The challenge
Yu'e Bao's rapid user growth put its existing Hadoop cluster under unsustainable pressure. The cluster could no longer handle the data volume. At the same time, the business needed richer analytics to understand user behavior and make accurate, data-driven decisions.
The solution
Tianhong Asset Management built an enterprise-grade, one-stop big data solution on Alibaba Cloud MaxCompute. MaxCompute provides secure, stable storage, management, and computation for massive datasets.
Processing time for user transaction data dropped from 8 hours to 1.5 hours. Local server pressure eased significantly, development and labor costs fell, and engineering teams shifted focus from infrastructure maintenance to product and business growth.
For more information about this use case, see Tianhong Asset Management Use Case.
Smart logistics use case: Qianxun SI
Industry: Smart logistics / IoT | Scale: Over 2,400 ground-based augmentation stations across China
Qianxun SI is a high-precision location service company that provides dynamic centimeter-level and static millimeter-level positioning accuracy. Its network draws from satellite systems including GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo, combined with more than 2,400 ground-based augmentation stations and proprietary positioning algorithms—delivering nationwide precise positioning for Internet of Things (IoT) applications.
The challenge
Qianxun SI needed to increase computational accuracy and speed to support a growing set of applications that depend on real-time, precise location data—without building and managing its own large-scale cluster infrastructure.
The solution
Qianxun SI adopted an Alibaba Cloud-based workflow for its entire data pipeline, eliminating the need to build or maintain dedicated clusters. In its hybrid cloud architecture, confidential data is processed within Apsara Stack, while large-scale computation runs on the public cloud using MaxCompute. Positioning data is then distributed through the public cloud.