Streaming and complex event processing (CEP)
Discussion of complex event processing (CEP), aka event processing or stream processing – i.e., of technology that executes queries before data is ever stored on disk. Related subjects include:
Coral8
StreamBase
Truviso
Progress Apama
Eight kinds of analytic database (Part 2)
In Part 1 of this two-part series, I outlined four variants on the traditional enterprise data warehouse/data mart dichotomy, and suggested what kinds of DBMS products you might use for each. In Part 2 I’ll cover four more kinds of analytic database — even newer, for the most part, with a use case/product short list match that is even less clear. Read more
Some quick notes on HP-Vertica
HP is acquiring Vertica. Read more
| Categories: In-memory DBMS, Investment research and trading, Memory-centric data management, StreamBase, Streaming and complex event processing (CEP), VoltDB and H-Store | 13 Comments |
Further quick SAP/Sybase reactions
Raj Nathan of Sybase has been calling around to chat quickly about the SAP/Sybase deal and related matters. Talking with Raj didn’t change any of my initial reactions to SAP’s acquisition of Sybase. I also didn’t bother Raj with too many hard questions, as he was clearly in call-and-reassure mode, reaching out to customers and influencers alike.
That said, Read more
Truviso evidently reinvents itself
When Aleri bought Coral8 last year, I wrote that the independent CEP (Complex Event Processing) vendors were floundering. Aleri quickly threw in the towel and sold out to Sybase, which hardly changed my opinion. StreamBase actually is persevering, but not with any kind of breakout success. Big vendors, such as Microsoft and IBM, have at least some aspirations of eventually filling the gap.
Meanwhile, Truviso — which never got much market traction in the first place — was in hiding; Roman Bukary never did keep his promise to brief me on the company’s new and improved strategy. Then Truviso had yet another management change, amidst rumors that it was repositioning away from CEP. As per a press release Truviso emailed today, that’s now official, with Truviso’s main business being something to do with web analytics.
Edit: It seems Truviso was at some point absorbed into Cisco.
Quick thoughts on the StreamBase Component Exchange
Streambase is announcing something called the StreamBase Component Exchange, for developers to exchange components to be used with the StreamBase engine, presumably on an open source basis. I simultaneously think:
- This is a good idea, and many software vendors should do it if they aren’t already.
- It’s no big deal.
For reasons why, let me quote an email I just sent to an inquiring reporter:
- StreamBase sells mainly to the financial services and intelligence community markets. Neither group will share much in the way of core algorithms.
- But both groups are pretty interested in open source software even so. (I think for both the price and customizability benefits.)
- Open source software commonly gets community contributions for connectors, adapters, and (national) language translations.
- But useful contributions in other areas are much rarer.
- Linden Labs is one of StreamBase’s few significant customers outside its two core markets.
- All of the above are consistent with the press release (which quotes only one StreamBase customer — guess who?).
| Categories: Games and virtual worlds, Investment research and trading, Open source, StreamBase, Streaming and complex event processing (CEP) | 8 Comments |
The Sybase Aleri RAP
Well, I got a quick Sybase/Aleri briefing, along with multiple apologies for not being prebriefed. (Main excuse: News was getting out, which accelerated the announcement.) Nothing badly contradicted my prior post on the Sybase/Aleri deal.
To understand Sybase’s plans for Aleri and CEP, it helps to understand Sybase’s current CEP-oriented offering, Sybase RAP. So far as I can tell, Sybase RAP has to date only been sold in the form of Sybase RAP: The Trading Edition. In that guise, Sybase RAP has been sold to >40 outfits since its May, 2008 launch, mainly big names in the investment banking and stock exchange sectors. If I understood correctly, the next target market for Sybase RAP is telcos, for real-time network tuning and management.
In addition to any domain-specific applications, Sybase RAP has three layers:
- CEP (Complex Event Processing). Sybase RAP CEP is based on a version of the Coral8 engine Sybase licensed and has been subsequently developing.
- In-memory DBMS. Sybase’s IMDB is part of (but I guess separable from) and has the same API as Sybase’s OLTP DBMS Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE, aka Sybase Classic).
- Sybase IQ. Actually, Sybase used the phrase “based on Sybase IQ,” but I’m guessing it’s just Sybase IQ.
Quick thoughts on Sybase/Aleri
Sybase announced an asset purchase that amounts to a takeover of CEP (Complex Event Processing) Aleri. Perhaps not coincidentally, Sybase already had technology under the hood from Aleri predecessor/acquiree Coral8, for financial services uses (notwithstanding that between Aleri Classic and Coral8, Aleri Classic was the one of the two more focused on financial services). Quick reactions include:
- The folks at Sybase still haven’t figured out when to prebrief me. (Edit: I’ve been briefed subsequently.)
- Sybase/Aleri is a potentially powerful combination, if they can effectively address the point I just made about integrating disparate latencies. That said, I’m not expecting a lot, because the CEP industry always disappoints me.
- Microsoft, IBM, and (somewhat less clearly) Oracle are all trying to do CEP inhouse. Sybase is making a good choice in having serious CEP inhouse itself
- Surely the main focus and financial justification for the Sybase/Aleri acquisition is the financial services market.
- Specifically, I expect the focus of technical integration between Aleri and Sybase’s DBMS products to start with Sybase IQ.
- Coral8 had some interesting ideas about how to integrate CEP with OLTP/operational BI, but I’m not aware that they got much traction.
- I bet there are use cases where Sybase tries and fails to sell Adaptive Server SQL Anywhere that CEP would be a better technical fit, but I don’t immediately see much practical business significance to that observation.
- While this deal could easily strengthen the Vertica/StreamBase partnership, I don’t see any reason why it would lead those two companies to actually merge.
Related link
| Categories: Aleri and Coral8, Analytic technologies, Investment research and trading, Streaming and complex event processing (CEP), Sybase | 7 Comments |
This and that
I have various subjects backed up that I don’t really want to write about at traditional blog-post length. Here are a few of them. Read more
Introduction to SenSage
I visited with SenSage on my two most recent trips to San Francisco. Both visits were, through no fault of SenSage’s, hasty. Still, I think I have enough of a handle on SenSage basics to be worth writing up.
General SenSage highlights include:
NoSQL?
Eric Lai emailed today to ask what I thought about the NoSQL folks, and especially whether I thought their ideas were useful for enterprises in general, as opposed to just Web 2.0 companies. That was the first I heard of NoSQL, which seems to be a community discussing SQL alternatives popular among the cloud/big-web-company set, such as BigTable, Hadoop, Cassandra and so on. My short answers are:
- In most cases, no.
- Most of these technologies are designed for simple, high-volume OLTP (OnLine Transaction Processing.) Most large enterprises have an established way of doing OLTP, probably via relational database management systems. Why change?
- MapReduce is an exception, in that it’s designed for analytics. MapReduce may be useful for enterprises. But where it is, it probably should be integrated into an analytic DBMS.
- There’s one big countervailing factor to all these generalities — schema flexibility.
As for the longer form, let me start by noting that there are two main kinds of reason for not liking SQL. Read more