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
Microsoft/DATAllegro time frame announced
Edit: Actually, an email did eventually wend its way to me about a day later, which evidently had run into major congestion somewhere in the intertubes.
My resolve to eschew scathing sarcasm is being sorely tested tonight. The lastest trial is my discovery that nobody thought to so much as email me a press release, let alone brief me, on Microsoft’s announcement of a timetable for DATAllegro/SQL Server integration. Per Ina Fried — with a hat tip to anonymous commenter L.J. — Microsoft says:
The final version of that product is slated for the first half of 2010, though Microsoft said it will begin giving customers and partners access to early “community technology preview” releases within the next 12 months.
| Categories: Data warehousing, DATAllegro, Microsoft and SQL*Server | Leave a Comment |
A NoteWorthy win for Intersystems Cache’
A small Microsoft SQL Server-based medical application vendor called NoteWorthy Medical Systems bought a small Intersystems Cache’-based medical application vendor called Mars Medical Systems. NoteWorthy then decided to rebuild its product line on Intersystems Cache’. A press release ensued.*
*In general, my criticisms of Intersystems’ stealth marketing are beginning to be relaxed. On the other hand, if you want to be technical, I still haven’t actually talked with the company for years …
I spoke briefly with Mark Conner, founder of Mars Medical and now EVP of NoteWorthy, about why he so loves Cache’. (I asked what he disliked about the product; his response was an emphatic “Nothing”.) It basically boils down to two reasons:
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Mark thinks hierarchical data models are a great fit for medical applications. For example, the application’s UI (and local schema) look quite different depending on which particular complaints or diagnoses apply to particular patient visits.
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Cache’ just runs and runs w/o DBA intervention. Mark cited a figure of two support engineers for Mars Medical, supporting over 1,000 medical (largely group) practices, almost none of which have DBAs.
The latter feature is crucial to small ISVs selling application software to even smaller users, and is a big part of why Progress and Intersystems have large share in that market. More generally, it’s the most important and common technical advantage that mid-range database management systems generally enjoy versus the market leaders. (The other big advantage, of course, is pricing.)
Further thoughts on DATAllegro/Microsoft
My first, biggest thought about DATAllegro’s acquisition by Microsoft is “Why the ____ did it have to happen while I was trying to relax on my annual Cayman vacation???” Not coincidentally, I don’t plan to neatly cross-link all my posts and so on about DATAllegro/Microsoft until I get back to Acton this weekend.
One linking screwup is that I previously forgot to mention that — in addition to the numerous posts here — I also made several DATAllegro/Microsoft-related posts on my Network World blog A World of Bytes. They include: Read more
| Categories: Analytic technologies, Data warehousing, DATAllegro, Microsoft and SQL*Server | 8 Comments |
Other early coverage of Microsoft/DATAllegro
- Here’s the official press release on DATAllegro’s site, and Microsoft’s.
- Doug Henschen of Intelligent Enterprise has a good article. He got quotes from Microsoft claiming that SQL Server on its own would be able to handle 10s of terabytes of data in the next release, but DATAllegro was needed to get up to the 100s of terabytes. That said, the quotes don’t say whether that’s user data or total disk usage — the latter frankly seems more plausible.
- James Kobielus of Forrester has a long post on the Microsoft/DATAllegro deal, emphasizing product packaging issues and glossing over technological differentiators. (Edit: The post seems down as of Friday midday.)
- This is a few weeks old, but Kevin Closson is extremely skeptical of some of DATAllegro’s technical claims. (Not that it matters much if he’s right — more nodes = more throughput, no matter how much Oracle folks rant.)
- Eric Lai of Computerworld gets it right.
- Larry Dignan thinks the acquisition is part of an overall strong Microsoft enterprise push.
- William McKnight thinks Microsoft usually does a good job of integrating acquisitions.
- DATAllegro CEO Stuart Frost is happy.
- David Hunter thinks Microsoft will blithely continue with DATAllegro’s limited-hardware-support strategy. He’s almost certainly wrong.
- Philip Howard says almost nothing I agree with, although I can’t argue with the part
Conversely, it’s bad news for Ingres, bad news for Oracle, bad news for IBM, bad news for Teradata and bad news for HP, all for obvious reasons. As for the other appliance vendors: they will not be too happy either. In particular, we now have to consider who can survive on their own, who might be acquired, who might do the acquiring, and who is going to disappear.
| Categories: Data warehousing, DATAllegro, Microsoft and SQL*Server | 15 Comments |
DATAllegro could provide Microsoft with a true enterprise data warehouse sooner than you think
Jim Ericson of DM Review emailed the excellent questions:
Does DATAllegro give MSFT full-service high end data warehousing capability? If not, what is missing?
My quick answers are:
- No.
- Two things:
- Hard-core multi-user concurrency.
- Support for more esoteric analytic tools and functionality
Both are largely a matter of product maturity, and as a young company DATAllegro isn’t quite there yet.
That said, integration with Microsoft SQL Server is apt to be a big help in addressing both issues. Read more
How will Oracle save its data warehouse business?
By acquiring DATAllegro, Microsoft has seriously leapfrogged Oracle in data warehouse technology. All doubts about maturity and versatility notwithstanding, DATAllegro has a 10X or better size advantage (actually, I think it’s more like 20-40X) versus Oracle in warehouses its technology can straightforwardly handle. Oracle cannot afford to let this move go unanswered.
It’s of course possible that Oracle has been successfully developing comparable data warehouse technology internally. But it’s unlikely. Oracle hasn’t done anything that radical, internally and successfully, for about 15 years, RAC (Real Application Clusters) excepted. (I.e., since the object/relational extensibility framework started in Release 7.) So in all likelihood, the answer will come via acquisition. I think there are four candidates that make the most sense: Teradata, Vertica, ParAccel, and Greenplum. Kognitio (controlled by former Oracle honcho Geoff Squire) might be in the mix as well. Netezza is probably a non-starter because of its hardware-centric strategy.
Here’s why I’m emphasizing Teradata, Vertica, ParAccel, and Greenplum: Read more
| Categories: Analytic technologies, Data warehouse appliances, Data warehousing, DATAllegro, Greenplum, Microsoft and SQL*Server, Oracle, ParAccel, Teradata, Vertica Systems | 15 Comments |
Microsoft is buying DATAllegro
I’ve long argued that:
- Oracle and Microsoft are doomed in the data warehouse market unless they acquire MPP/shared-nothing data warehouse DBMS and/or data warehouse appliances.
- DATAllegro is the ideal acquisition for either of them.
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: Read more
Who is doing what in XML data management these days?
A comment thread to a post on a different subject has opened up a discussion of XML storage. Frankly, I haven’t kept up with my briefings on the subject, in part because XML support hasn’t proved to be very important yet to the big DBMS vendors, somewhat to my surprise. When last I looked, the situation wasn’t much different from what it was back in November, 2005. Unless I’ve missed something (and please tell me if I have!), here’s what’s going on: Read more
| Categories: IBM and DB2, Intersystems and Cache', MarkLogic, Microsoft and SQL*Server, Oracle, Structured documents | 7 Comments |
Positioning the data warehouse appliances and specialty DBMS
There now are four hardware vendors that each offer or seem about to announce two different tiers of data warehouse appliances: Sun, HP, EMC, and Teradata. Specifically:
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Sun partners with both Greenplum and ParAccel.
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HP sells Neoview, and also is partnered with Vertica.
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EMC (together with Dell in North America and Bull in Europe) sells DATAllegro. Now EMC is also entering a partnership with ParAccel.
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Teradata is pretty far down the road toward releasing a low-end product.
Data warehousing with paper clips and duct tape
An interesting part of my conversation with Dataupia’s CTO John O’Brien came when we talked about data warehousing in general. On the one hand, he endorsed the view that using Oracle probably isn’t a good idea for data warehouses larger than 10 terabytes, with SQL Server’s limit being well below that. On the other hand, he said he’d helped build 50-60 terabyte warehouses in Oracle years ago.
The point is that to build warehouses that big in Oracle or other traditional DBMS, you have to pull out a large bag of tricks. Read more