Arity enhances data speed & cuts costs with Starburst

Arity has substantially enhanced its data processing capabilities and reduced costs by leveraging Starburst Galaxy.

The collaboration has enabled Arity, which specialises in mobility data analytics, to achieve a tenfold increase in data processing speed, a 66% reduction in analytics costs, and a doubling of data accessibility for non-engineering teams. This is achieved while managing petabytes of driving data within a unified data lakehouse.

"With Starburst, we're now able to make data accessible across our organisation while significantly reducing costs and processing time. Starburst's SQL-based platform lowers the barrier to data insights, helping us operate more effectively and securely," said Reza Banikazemi, Director of System Architecture at Arity.

Arity manages one of the world's largest datasets of driving behaviour linked to insurance claims data and faced challenges due to scalability issues. Their previous solution became increasingly costly and resource-intensive, creating accessibility barriers that restricted data use to engineering teams, thus causing bottlenecks.

Arity transitioned to Starburst Galaxy, utilising a fully managed data lakehouse powered by Trino, to overcome these challenges. The shift provided significant benefits, including a tenfold improvement in data query speeds, which facilitated real-time analytics for applications such as city planning and road safety.

Arity also achieved greater cost efficiency, effectively cutting data processing expenses by 66% and enabling the reallocation of resources to new analytics opportunities, such as targeted advertising and usage-based insurance.

Starburst's intuitive SQL interface democratised data access, doubling the number of data users and empowering non-engineering teams, including sales engineering and professional services, to independently analyse data.

The lakehouse architecture provided by Starburst also enhanced security, ensuring data remained within Arity's Apache Iceberg environment and adhered to compliance standards, while also expanding data accessibility securely.

"Switching to Starburst Galaxy has streamlined our processing and improved data governance and lineage. Starburst has enabled us to shift from a complex data environment to a simpler, SQL-based approach that more of our teams can use effectively," Banikazemi added.

Arity plans to integrate Starburst Galaxy further across various business units to enable more advanced real-time analytics, support the creation of targeted advertising audiences, and facilitate the development of innovative insurance models based on driving behaviour.

"With Starburst, we've reduced data processing costs by two-thirds and accelerated data access by 10X. Now, we can get insights in minutes instead of hours, transforming our decision-making process," said Banikazemi, emphasising the enhanced data accessibility brought by the SQL-based interface, which "effectively doubled our data users, empowering teams beyond just engineering." On the subject of scalability and security, Banikazemi noted, "Starburst lets us keep data secure and compliant, expanding access without sacrificing security."

Justin Borgman, Co-founder and CEO of Starburst, commented, "Arity's success demonstrates the transformative potential of Starburst Galaxy for companies dealing with massive datasets. Our mission is to provide organisations with a powerful, scalable, and secure analytics platform that accelerates insights and reduces costs. We're proud to support Arity as they continue to innovate and set new benchmarks in mobility analytics."