Case Study: Actify achieves scalable, simplified product-data management with ArangoDB

Meet Actify Making product data intelligent

Actify, maker of the Centro data management and discovery platform, needed to add sophisticated, hierarchy-driven features for CAD and product structures without increasing architectural complexity or deployment burden. Previously built on SQL Server, Actify wanted a core system that could act as both a standalone product data management application and a platform for tailored analytics and business tools, while remaining simple to deploy for on‑premise customers. After evaluating multiple options, Actify selected ArangoDB’s multi-model database (graph + document) for its built-in REST interface, expressive data modeling, AQL query language, and distributed features.

Using ArangoDB, Actify models product assemblies as directed acyclic graphs and stores CAD-related documents in the same database, enabling history tracking of product-structure changes and a “where‑used” analysis that combines graph traversal with 3D search to find and consolidate duplicate parts. The single-database approach reduced application footprint and deployment complexity, improved query performance and scalability, and let Actify “scale through our software, not engineering time.” Actify continues to expand Centro’s capabilities (Materials Library, Collaboration, Analytics) with ArangoDB and plans to leverage ArangoSearch to enhance search functionality.

Actify

Ross Mills

Engineering Manager