RDB Consulting, which positions itself as a leading enterprise database support and operating system management specialist, has used AI to pioneer a new infrastructure optimisation tool to underpin operations for SA Stud Book – the organisation responsible for animal recording, data management and genetic improvement services for South Africa's livestock breeding industry.
SA Stud Book, a 120-year-old registry tracking the lineage, genealogy and breeding history of animals, has been on a programme of digital transformation and modernisation in recent years. With RDB Consulting as its managed services partner, SA Stud Book has improved the speed and reliability of its mission-critical infrastructure, and has established the foundation for in-house digital development.
Kobus Jacobs, service delivery manager at RDB Consulting, says the RDB team designed and built the new infrastructure optimisation tool using Anthropic's Claude. He believes it could be a game-changer for smaller and midsize businesses in South Africa.
“There is nothing else like this on the market,” he says. “It puts enterprise-grade system management and backup functionality within reach of smaller and midsize businesses, and the intelligence behind it allows us to automate functions and customise it to meet niche needs. Our system minimises manual processes, enables cost savings and frees engineers to do more strategic work.”
Ricky Gladwin, Oracle DBA and developer at RDB Consulting, says: “Our system offers AI-assisted performance enhancements to find vulnerabilities or variables that could slow their systems over time.”
Kgosi Moleme, system administrator and developer at RDB Consulting, says the new system significantly speeds up processes and eliminates the need for floods of e-mail notifications: “Now all of those records are in one dashboard. It also shows us where the errors are, allowing us to sort out issues faster. We use the AI to monitor backups and any incidents, run daily security checks and do our own code scans to check for vulnerabilities.”
The solution has reduced backup verification time from up to 45 minutes to only around five minutes, he says.
Jacobs says: “We want to ensure 100% uptime, and AI is helping us to do so. While we are harnessing AI to improve our operations, our key AI principles are based on security, maintaining the human element, validating what we do and continuous improvement.”
Underpinning livelihoods and food security
SA Stud Book CEO Dr Bobbie van der Westhuizen explains that SA Stud Book’s digital infrastructure is crucial for supporting its clients.
With pedigree information dating back to 1905, SA Stud Book holds tens of millions of animal data records, pedigree information, performance records, milk production records and more. It records pedigree and performance data from cattle, small stock, sheep, goats, horses, pigs and Boerboel dogs. SA Stud Book currently actively monitors over 6 000 herds – or around 1.2 million animals – with data flowing in about these animals every day.
“This data includes birth notifications, birth weights, pre-weaning weights, weaning weights, yearling weights, 18-months weights, reproduction data and health data,” Dr Van der Westhuizen says.
He emphasises the importance of the platform: “SA Stud Book enables precision farming for animal breeding and recording. This is the breeding stock of South Africa in terms of animal production. Its impact sifts down to the whole of the industry, through supply chains, to rural communities and ultimately to the country’s food security.”
“SA Stud Book must be available 24/7, because farmers work on our cloud platform around the clock. Breeders measure and record data on the farms, and that data must be transformed into insights as quickly as possible. They need to know which animals they will keep to breed with and which will be sent to the auction house. When there are auctions, they need access to the catalogues with the genetic merits and breeding worth of each animal to make their decisions. Livelihoods depend on it, so the system cannot go down.
“Reliability is also crucial for us to remain registered with the South Africa Registrar of Animal Improvement and the International Committee of Animal Recording (ICAR),” he says. “We are audited on various factors, including our digital services, database management, systems and backups.”
SA Stud Book has worked closely with RDB Consulting for several years, with RDB’s teams helping migrate SA Stud Book from slow, ageing systems to more reliable and advanced infrastructure.
Dr Van der Westhuizen says the move has positioned SA Stud Book to expand its digital innovation programme and begin exploring AI-enabled products and services.
He says: “Our in-house programmers use AI to develop our new products – such as our new traceability system called IDTrax. IDTrax is a full animal and vaccine traceability platform to trace which animals have been vaccinated against foot and mouth disease, for instance. We are also working on predictive models to help identify animals that need fewer resources, produce less methane or are more productive with less impact on the environment.
“We trust RDB to keep our systems running optimally. In fact, the work that RDB does is possibly the most important aspect within our company,” Dr Van der Westhuizen concludes.
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