Teradata
Analysis of data warehousing giant Teradata. Related subjects include:
So what does Oracle Exadata mean for HP Neoview?
That HP is committed to selling a lot of data warehouse hardware — and probably data warehouse appliances in particular — seems obvious, for reasons including:
- HP bought a big BI/data warehousing consulting operation in Knightsbridge.
- HP has put considerable effort into its data warehouse appliance Neoview.
- HP CEO Mark Hurd comes from data warehouse appliance vendor Teradata.
- Data warehousing where the big bucks are.
But Oracle Exadata could produce those appliance sales. So where does HP Neoview fit in?
I was told by an investor today that HP’s investor relations department is saying Oracle Exadata is a Netezza competitor, while Neoview is more in the Teradata market. That’s laughable. Read more
| Categories: Data warehouse appliances, Data warehousing, Exadata, HP and Neoview, Netezza, Teradata | 16 Comments |
Netezza overseas
22% of Netezza’s revenue comes from outside the US, at least if we use last quarter’s figures as a guide. At first blush, that doesn’t sound like much. Indeed, percentage-wise it surely lags behind Teradata, Greenplum (which has sold a lot in Asia/Pacific under Netezza’s former head of that region), and a few smaller competitors headquartered outside the US. But a few conversations I had today suggest a rosier view. Read more
| Categories: Data warehouse appliances, Data warehousing, Greenplum, Kognitio, Market share and customer counts, Netezza, Teradata | Leave a Comment |
Teradata sound bites
In connection with Teradata’s attempt to get into the Netezza news cycle with an appliance product announcement, I’ve whipped up a few Teradata-related sound bites suitable for quoting.
- Teradata has been in the data warehouse appliance business since 1984. I’m glad they’re finally admitting it.
- Teradata’s users love them. The users’ bosses, who sign the checks, aren’t as thrilled. Price competition is a big issue for Teradata.
- Teradata pricing has caused some real resistance, and even anger. Price is the big reason some startups are growing so much faster than Teradata. Ease of installation is sometimes a second factor.
- Teradata isn’t going to win many price-per-terabyte shootouts. (Note: I mean price per terabyte of user data.)
- The 5-10X+ performance advantage isn’t as crazy as it sounds, at least for some use cases. Teradata does still get a lot of business, and wins some price/performance shootouts to get it.
- Many Teradata customers are buying newer analytic DBMS as well. But they aren’t throwing out Teradata. Most stories of Teradata replacements are misunderstandings.
- The analytic DBMS startups all still do most of their business supporting data marts. If you have a high-concurrency workload, you usually need more mature technology. That’s where Teradata shines.
- That said, the very largest data warehouses are usually really data marts. High-concurrency BI is usually run against somewhat smaller databases.
- The upper limit for data warehouse sizes is skyrocketing. In 18 months, we’re seeing the largest known production systems go from under 1 petabyte of user data to multiple petabytes.
- Teradata has more competition for the very largest databases than it used to, which are now being found in relatively young web companies even more than in old-line telcos, retailers, or banks.
| Categories: Analytic technologies, Data warehouse appliances, Data warehousing, Teradata | Leave a Comment |
Teradata decides to compete head-on as a data warehouse appliance vendor
In a press release today that is surely timed to impinge on the Netezza user conference news cycle, Teradata has come out swinging. Highlights include:
- Teradata, which long avoided the “appliance” term, now says it sells both “data warehouse appliances” and “data mart appliances.” Indeed, it claims to have “invented the original appliance” — which is pretty close to being true.*
- Teradata claims its “new appliance easily delivers up to 5 to 10 times performance improvement over competitors’ appliances,” at $119,000 per terabyte US list price.
- Teradata claims a 150% faster “scan rate” than competitors. Teradata is surely thinking of Netezza when saying that.
- Teradata claims 10X performance improvement on “selected queries” vs. the “competition.”
- Teradata thinks its geospatial data management capability is better than competitors’, and that this is an important indicator of Teradata’s general overall greater sophistication.
| Categories: Analytic technologies, Data warehouse appliances, Data warehousing, GIS and geospatial, Netezza, Teradata | 4 Comments |
Teradata’s major vertical markets in 2007
From a May, 2008 earnings conference call transcript:
- telecommunication, media and entertainment industry is 28%;
- financial services is 24%;
- retail is 19% of our revenues last year;
- manufacturing 9%;
- government 7%;
- travel and transportation 6%;
- and healthcare 5%.
| Categories: Application areas, Data warehouse appliances, Data warehousing, Telecommunications, Teradata | 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 |
Enterprises are buying multiple brands of analytic DBMS each
Over the past few weeks I’ve had a lot of NDA discussions about analytic DBMS vendors’ specific customers. And so I’ve been acutely aware of something I already sort of knew — just as there was in prior generations of database management technology, there’s huge overlap among analytic DBMS vendors’ customer bases as well. As they always have, enterprises are investing in multiple different brands of DBMS, even in cases where those DBMS can do pretty much the same things.
For example:
- Many Teradata users are buying newer technology too. But they aren’t actually throwing out Teradata.
- The same sometimes applies to Netezza already. At least two Netezza references are also references for a rival vendor.
- One outfit is among the biggest customers for two different analytic DBMS vendors, neither of which is Teradata or Netezza.
- One corporation is using or deploying four different brands of analytic DBMS.
- TEOCO is a big user of both DATAllegro and Netezza.
My current customer list among the data warehouse specialists
One of my favorite pages on the Monash Research website is the list of many current and a few notable past customers. (Another favorite page is the one for testimonials.) For a variety of reasons, I won’t undertake to be more precise about my current customer list than that. But I don’t think it would hurt anything to list the data warehouse DBMS/appliance specialists in the group. They are:
- Aster Data
- Calpont
- DATAllegro
- Greenplum
- Infobright
- Netezza
- ParAccel
- Teradata
- Vertica
All of those are Monash Advantage members.
If you care about all this, you may also be interested in the rest of my standards and disclosures.
| Categories: About this blog, Aster Data, Calpont, Data warehousing, DATAllegro, Greenplum, Infobright, Netezza, ParAccel, Teradata, Vertica Systems | 3 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 |
Top-end data warehouse sizes have grown hundreds-fold over the past 12 years
I just tripped across a link from February, 1996 in which NCR/Teradata:
- Bragged that it had half a dozen customers with >1 TB of raw user data
- Showed off a “record-breaking” 11 TB simulation
That represents roughly a 60-70% annual growth rate in top-end database sizes in the intervening 12 years.
| Categories: Analytic technologies, Data warehousing, Teradata | 4 Comments |