July 24, 2008

Microsoft is buying DATAllegro

I’ve long argued that:

Microsoft has now validated my claim by agreeing to buy DATAllegro. As you probably know, we’ve been covering DATAllegro extensively, as per the links listed below.

Basic deal highlights include:

To understand how DATAllegro will fit into Microsoft’s SQL Server product line, let’s start by reviewing aspects of DATAllegro’s product architecture:

Feasibility work has already been done on the port to SQL Server. Stuart reports that the work so far indicates a significant speed-up, which he attributes to data warehouse performance optimizations present in SQL Server that are lacking in the less well-funded Ingres. (Specifically mentioned were star joins and some sort of memory-centric capability.) One interesting implication is that when DATAllegro’s optimizer is rewritten for the port, it will largely do less than it has been doing to date, since SQL Server needs less “help” in optimizing the single-node parts of queries than Ingres does. The port will also of course involve changes to the file structures, due both to the change of DBMS and operating system; I got the sense that in this area, final decisions truly haven’t yet been made.

And yes – Stuart now confesses that DATAllegro was designed for acquisition from the get-go, e.g. in the choice to incorporate a third-party OLTP DBMS.

Related links (some about to go up)

Comments

6 Responses to “Microsoft is buying DATAllegro”

  1. How will Oracle save its data warehouse business? | DBMS2 -- DataBase Management System Services on July 24th, 2008 2:38 pm

    […] Microsoft is buying DATAllegro […]

  2. The data warehouse DBMS consolidation has begun | DBMS2 -- DataBase Management System Services on July 24th, 2008 2:39 pm

    […] Microsoft is buying DATAllegro. […]

  3. Mark Callaghan on July 26th, 2008 12:07 pm

    What did Microsoft get? I assume the hardware platform (EMC and Dell?), customer base and Ingres are not of much value to them. Patents, people, engineers and the glue code that optimizes queries on the head node has value.

    Performance should be much faster with SQL Server on each node. Microsoft hash join is much better than Ingres (async IO, dynamic skew handling, …). Their star join optimization is better than nothing, but about 15 years behind Oracle. Informix XPS has the same optimization.

  4. Curt Monash on July 26th, 2008 2:37 pm

    Mark,

    That’s pretty much spot-on, although it’s a matter of semantics as to whether all the credit goes to the head node or not.

    CAM

  5. Oracle Exadata and Oracle data warehouse appliance sound bites | DBMS2 -- DataBase Management System Services on September 24th, 2008 11:43 pm

    […] had leapfrogged Oracle with its DATAllegro acquisition. Now Oracle’s back in the […]

  6. Are analytic RDBMS and data warehouse appliances obsolete? | DBMS 2 : DataBase Management System Services on August 31st, 2016 5:12 pm

    […] Microsoft bought DATAllegro. […]

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