Oracle
Analysis of software titan Oracle and its efforts in database management, analytics, and middleware. Related subjects include:
- Oracle TimesTen
- (in The Monash Report)Operational and strategic issues for Oracle
- (in Software Memories) Historical notes on Oracle
- Most of what’s written about in this blog
Is Oracle11g V2 going to have shared-nothing aspects?
One of my favorite DBMS reporters:
- Uncovered convincing rumors that Oracle 11g V2, to be announced next week, will have clustering or “grid” enhancements.
- Uncovered unconvincing rumors that some of these enhancements will address Oracle’s well-known and problematic lack of shared-nothing capabilities.
- Pointed me at a couple of posts that went up and were quickly taken back down from Don Burleson’s site.
More precisely, he pointed me at the Google cache versions of same, which are here and here; obviously, those links will expire at some point. And so I’m reproducing the key parts below, namely: Read more
| Categories: Oracle | 5 Comments |
Top DBMS on Linux
I was looking up George Crump’s blogs in connection with his recent post on SSDs, and I stumbled upon one that outlines at great length what features Linux backup systems should have. I won’t claim to have read it word for word, but what did catch my eye were a couple of comments on DBMS market share, which boiled down to:
- Oracle
- MySQL
- PostgreSQL
| Categories: IBM and DB2, Market share and customer counts, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL | Leave a Comment |
Teradata/Netezza/Tesco kerfuffle
Netezza evidently put out a press release bragging of a competitive replacement of Teradata at UK retailing giant Tesco. That press release cannot be now found on Netezza’s site, but it lives on elsewhere. Meanwhile, Teradata has put out a press release in which Tesco is quoted emphatically contradicting what it is quoted as saying in the Netezza press release. While I haven’t discussed this with Netezza, my guess is that somebody there got a little overenthusiastic in advance of their user conference next week and thought they’d gotten a permission they really hadn’t.
Beyond that, I’d note that the Netezza quote made reference to around 25 heavy analytical users, while the Teradata quote talked of 8000 people across more than 2000 suppliers.
| Categories: Data warehouse appliances, Data warehousing, Memory-centric data management, Netezza, Oracle, Specific users, Teradata | 2 Comments |
More data on data warehouse sizes and issues
I spoke today with Paul Barth and Randy Bean of consultancy NewVantage Partners. The core of NewVantage’s business seems to be helping large enterprises (especially financial services) with their data warehouse strategies. Takeaways — none of which should shock regular readers of DBMS2 — included:
- Administrative cost and difficulty are often the single biggest issue in selecting analytic DBMS products.
- Oracle hits a wall around 10 terabytes of user data. The one customer NewVantage can think of with an Oracle data warehouse over 10 terabytes is fleeing Oracle for Netezza.
- NewVantage says that very specialized data warehouses on Oracle could conceivably be larger than that.
- NewVantage does have a customer on DB2/UDB in the 30-40 terabyte range. That customer does a lot of careful tuning to make it work.
- About 15% of NewVantage’s customers use Netezza. Few if any use newer analytic DBMS (but I got the sense more will soon). The rest rely on “traditional” DBMS, a group that includes Teradata.
| Categories: Data warehousing, IBM and DB2, Netezza, Oracle | 1 Comment |
Kevin Closson doesn’t like MPP
Kevin Closson of Oracle offers a long criticism of the popularity of MPP. Key takeaways include:
- TPC-H benchmarks that show Oracle as somewhat superior to DB2 are highly significant.
- TPC-H benchmarks in which MPP vendors destroy Oracle are too unimportant to even mention.
- SMP did better than MPP the last time he was in a position to judge (which evidently was some time during the Clinton Administration), so it surely must still be superior for all purposes today.
| Categories: Data warehousing, Oracle, Parallelization | 20 Comments |
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
EnterpriseDB’s itemized claims of Oracle compatibility
Obviously, I’m poking around EnterpriseDB’s site this morning (in connection with their status as my client, actually). Anyhow, we all know that one of EnterpriseDB’s core claims is great Oracle-compatibility — but what exactly do they mean by that? I found a fairly clearly laid-out answer, as of last year, in this white paper and and — even more simply — in this blog post summarizing the white paper.
Response to Rita Sallam of Oracle
In a comment thread on Seth Grimes’ blog, Rita Sallam of Oracle engaged in a passionate defense of her data warehousing software. I’d like to take it upon myself to respond to a few of here points here. Read more
| Categories: Benchmarks and POCs, Clustering, Data warehousing, Oracle, Parallelization | 10 Comments |
Oracle Optimized Warehouse Initiative
Oracle’s response to data warehouse appliances — and to IBM’s BCUs (Balanced Configuration Units) — so far is the Oracle Optimized Warehouse Initiative (OOW, not to be confused with Oracle Open World). A small amount of information about Oracle Optimized Warehouse can be found on Oracle’s website. Another small amount can be found in this recent long and breathless TDWI article, full of such brilliancies as attributing to the data warehouse appliance vendors the “claim that relational databases simply aren’t cut out for analytic workloads.” (Uh, what does he think they’re running — CODASYL DBMS?)
So far as I can tell, what Oracle Optimized Warehouse — much like IBM’s BCU — boils down to is the same old Oracle DBMS, but with recommended hardware configuration and tuning parameters. Thus, a lot of the hassle is taken out of ordering and installing an Oracle data warehouse, which is surely a good thing. But I doubt it does much to solve Oracle’s problems with price, price/performance, or the inevitable DBA hassles derived from a poorly-performing DBMS.
| Categories: Data warehouse appliances, Data warehousing, Oracle | 3 Comments |