Kx Systems, the acknowledged leader in time-series analytics for streaming, real-time and historical data, today announced the release of a new version of its kdb+ database and analytics technology, Kx v3.4.

This latest version includes encryption using TLS/SSL protocols and integration with Tableau and other visual front-ends through its ODBC 3.8 interface. Google’s Snappy compression has been added to the existing suite of compression algorithms. Users report this new compression is up to 25% faster than other methods.

“For the infrastructure builder Kx v3.4 brings a new arsenal of tools to your repertoire. Kx v3.4 both adds and removes,” said a long-time Kx customer at a large financial institution. “It adds mechanisms to modify and move more data to more places faster and more efficiently.  It removes barriers to integration with non-Kx systems allowing for a more seamless infrastructure that can be more rapidly built and done so with greater confidence.”
Kx is widely used in financial services and is now growing in popularity across other industries, such as pharmaceuticals, utilities and telecoms. The latest set of improvements reflects the changing needs of its growing customer base.

Simon Garland, Chief Customer Officer at Kx, said: "Our approach to determining which features we add to Kx is based very much on clients’ feedback. In the case of v3.4, these enhancements will provide immediate benefits to our users. For example, the addition of TLS support provides secure connections, which are vital as corporations and financial institutions face ever-greater cybersecurity challenges. It is also important for the banking industry because of regulatory requirements.” He added: “With the new ODBC driver we are helping our clients to access much larger datasets through BI packages like Tableau.”

The production version of Kx v3.4 is now available to licensed users; for users of the previous version the upgrade is seamless. The free 32-bit version of v3.4 will be made available shortly.

Kx and kdb+ are registered trademarks of Kx Systems, Inc., a subsidiary of First Derivatives plc.