Microsoft and SQL*Server
Microsoft’s efforts in the database management, analytics, and data connectivity markets. Related subjects include:
- DATAllegro, which is being bought by Microsoft
- (in Text Technologies) Microsoft in the search, online media, and social software markets
- (in The Monash Report) Strategic issues for Microsoft, and Microsoft Office
- (in Software Memories) Historical notes on Microsoft
Closing the book on the DATAllegro customer base
I’m prepared to call an end to the “Guess DATAllegro’s customers” game. Bottom line is that there are three in all, two of which are TEOCO and Dell, and the third of which is a semi-open secret. I wrote last week:
The number of DATAllegro production references is expected to double imminently, from one to two. Few will be surprised at the identity of the second reference. I imagine the number will then stay at two, as DATAllegro technology is no longer being sold, and the third known production user has never been reputed to be particularly pleased with it.
Dell did indeed disclose at TDWI that it was a large DATAllegro user, notwithstanding that Dell is a huge Teradata user as well. No doubt, Dell is gearing up to be a big user of Madison too.
Also at TDWI, I talked with some former DATAllegro employees who now work for rival vendors. None thinks DATAllegro has more than three customers. Neither do I.
Edit: Subsequently, the DATAllegro customer count declined to 1.
| Categories: Data warehouse appliances, Data warehousing, DATAllegro, Market share and customer counts, Microsoft and SQL*Server, Specific users | 10 Comments |
Data warehousing business trends
I’ve talked with a whole lot of vendors recently, some here at TDWI, as well as users, fellow analysts, and so on. Repeated themes include: Read more
| Categories: Analytic technologies, Application areas, Data mart outsourcing, Data warehousing, eBay, Microsoft and SQL*Server, MySQL, Oracle, Teradata | Leave a Comment |
Microsoft SQL Server Fast Track
Stuart Frost of Microsoft (nee’ DATAllegro) checked in, with Microsoft’s TDWI-timed announcements. The news part was something called “SQL Server Fast Track“, which is the Microsoft SQL Server equivalent to Oracle’s “recommended configurations” or IBM’s “BCUs.” SQL Server Fast Track is further being portrayed as an incremental step toward Madison, Microsoft’s future high-end data warehousing offering.
| Categories: Data warehousing, Microsoft and SQL*Server, Pricing | 5 Comments |
Draft slides on how to select an analytic DBMS
I need to finalize an already-too-long slide deck on how to select an analytic DBMS by late Thursday night. Anybody see something I’m overlooking, or just plain got wrong?
Edit: The slides have now been finalized.
Gartner’s 2009 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence
A few days ago I tore into the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse DBMS. Well, the 2009 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms is out too. Unlike the data warehouse MQ, Gartner’s BI MQ clusters its “Leaders” together tightly. But while less bold, the Business Intelligence Magic Quadrant’s claims are just as questionable as those in data warehousing.
February, 2011 edit: Here’s a partial link that works right now.
Of course, some parts do make sense. E.g.: Read more
Gartner’s 2008 data warehouse database management system Magic Quadrant is out
February, 2011 edit: I’ve now commented on Gartner’s 2010 Data Warehouse Database Management System Magic Quadrant as well.
Gartner’s annual Magic Quadrant for data warehouse DBMS is out. Thankfully, vendors don’t seem to be taking it as seriously as usual, so I didn’t immediately hear about it. (I finally noticed it in a Greenplum pay-per-click ad.) Links to Gartner MQs tend to come and go, but as of now here are two working links to the 2008 Gartner Data Warehouse Database Management System MQ. My posts on the 2007 and 2006 MQs have also been updated with working links. Read more
Beyond query
I sometimes describe database management systems as “big SQL interpreters,” because that’s the core of what they do. But it’s not all they do, which is why I describe them as “electronic file clerks” too. File clerks don’t just store and fetch data; they also put a lot of work into neatening, culling, and generally managing the health of their information hoards.
Already 15 years ago, online backup was as big a competitive differentiator in the database wars as any particular SQL execution feature. Security became important in some market segments. Reliability and availability have been important from the getgo. And manageability has been crucial ever since Microsoft lapped Oracle in that regard, back when SQL Server had little else to recommend it except price.*
*Before Oracle10g, the SQL Server vs. Oracle manageability gap was big.
Now data warehousing is demanding the same kinds of infrastructure richness.* Read more
| Categories: Data warehousing, Microsoft and SQL*Server, Oracle | 1 Comment |
Big scientific databases need to be stored somehow
A year ago, Mike Stonebraker observed that conventional DBMS don’t necessarily do a great job on scientific data, and further pointed out that different kinds of science might call for different data access methods. Even so, some of the largest databases around are scientific ones, and they have to be managed somehow. For example:
- Microsoft just put out an overwrought press release. The substance seems to be that Pan-STARRS — a Jim Gray legacy also discussed in an August, 2008 Computerworld article — is adding 1.4 terabytes of image data per night, and one not so new database adds 15 terabytes per year of some kind of computer simulation output used to analyze protein folding. Both run on SQL Server, of course.
- Kognitio has an astronomical database too, at Cambridge University, adding 1/2 a terabyte of data per night.
- Oracle is used for a McGill University proteonomics database called CellMapBase. A figure of 50 terabytes of “mass storage” is included, which doesn’t include tape backup and so on.
- The Large Hadron Collider, once it actually starts functioning, is projected to generate 15 petabytes of data annually, which will be initially stored on tape and then distributed to various computing centers around the world.
- Netezza is proud of its ability to serve images and the like quickly, although off the top of my head I’m not thinking of a major customer it has in that area. (But then, if you just sell software, your academic discount can approach 100%; but if like Netezza you have an actual cost of goods sold, that’s not as appealing an option.)
Long-term, I imagine that the most suitable DBMS for these purposes will be MPP systems with strong datatype extensibility — e.g., DB2, PostgreSQL-based Greenplum, PostgreSQL-based Aster nCluster, or maybe Oracle.
| Categories: Aster Data, Data types, Greenplum, IBM and DB2, Kognitio, Microsoft and SQL*Server, Netezza, Oracle, Parallelization, PostgreSQL, Scientific research | 1 Comment |
Multiple approaches to memory-centric analytics
Memory-centric analytic processing is in the spotlight.
- Microsoft’s big analytics announcement for the week (one of them, anyway), is “Gemini,” which evidently amounts to some kind of in-memory, cube-based analytics, but with columns rather than true cubes as the in-memory data structure.
- That sounds at lot like SAP’s BI Accelerator, which is a way to manifest SAP InfoCubes in-memory in a columnar architecture.
- QlikTech is going gangbusters with memory-centric business intelligence.
- IBM/Cognos’ Applix, which has a rather unique approach to memory-centric cubes, has never lived up to its potential. But now people are being reminded it exists.
- Exasol has made some sales with a highly memory-centric approach to data warehousing. Kognitio’s story is somewhat disk/RAM hybrid (disk is certainly involved, but the best parts of the technology deal with what happens once the data gets into RAM).
- Most of what the CEP (Complex Event Processing, aka event/stream processing) industry does is memory-centric analytics, both via tight integration with operational apps seems and for conventional BI.
| Categories: Analytic technologies, Memory-centric data management, Microsoft and SQL*Server | 3 Comments |
Advance sound bites on the Microsoft/DATAllegro announcement
Microsoft said they’d prebrief me on at least the DATAllegro part of tomorrow’s SQL Server announcements, but that didn’t turn out to happen (at least as of 9 pm Eastern time Sunday night). An embargoed press release did just arrive, but it’s so concise and high-level as to contain almost nothing of interest.
So I might as well post sound bites in advance. Here goes:
- With the DATAllegro acquisition, Microsoft leapfrogged Oracle. But with Exadata, Oracle leapfrogged Microsoft back. Exadata is actually shipping.
- There’s no assurance that the first DATAllegro/Microsoft release will inherit SQL Server’s level of concurrency. After all, DATAllegro/Ingres wasn’t as concurrent as plain Ingres.
- Porting DATAllegro from Ingres to SQL Server is likely to be straightforward. If they screw up it will be because they tried to do too much else at the same time, not because the basic port failed.
- Porting DATAllegro from Linux to Windows should also be OK. DATAllegro doesn’t stress the operating system in the areas where Windows remains weak.
- Earlier this year, DATAllegro had exactly one customer known to be in production, but I’ve spoken with that one. It’s TEOCO, which has a multi-hundred terabyte DATAllegro installation. TEOCO is a very price-oriented buyer.
- DATAllegro reports that two more customers are in production with large systems now. Neither of those is believed by industry sources to be especially in love with DATAllegro. Otherwise, nobody seems able and willing to identify other DATAllegro customers.
I’m going to be pretty busy Monday anyway. Linda is having a bit of oral surgery. And if I get back from that in time, I have calls set up with a couple of clients.