April 28th, 2007 Curt Monash
For the past 20+ years – all the way back to when it was still privately held — I’ve periodically gotten up to speed on Progress Software. I’m trying again now, and to that end dropped by yesterday for a chat with Jeff Stamen. I’ll give a brief overview now – which is probably all I’m qualified to do right now anyway – and then loop back with more detailed info after I get it.
After a reorganization at the beginning of this (November) fiscal year, the vast majority of Progress’ products fall into one of five buckets, which I shall glibly refer to in decreasing order of size as “Progress Classic,” “SOA,” “drivers,” “memory-centric,” and “EasyAsk.” Here’s a quick overview of each. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Hierarchies, networks, graphs, and trees, Mid-range DBMS, OLTP database management, Objects, Products and vendors, Progress, Apama, and DataDirect, Relational database management systems | 1 Comment »
April 26th, 2007 Curt Monash
I chatted again recently with Simon Peel of Cast Iron Systems, and this time I got a better understanding of Cast Iron’s simplicity claim. It refers largely to a drag-and-drop interface that furthermore provides default mappings between pairs of application suites. Simon bristled a bit when I referred to this as mapping “like to like,” because he’s proud that it’s a little smarter than that. Still, “like to like” seems to be what it typically amounts to — customers go to customers, customer addresses go to customer addresses, and so on. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Cast Iron Systems, EII, ETL, and/or EAI, Pervasive Software | 5 Comments »
April 26th, 2007 Curt Monash
Reuters wrote a really stupid article on the MySQL/IBM deal, and some bloggers have gotten over-excited as well. Even the not-ignorant among these seem to be overlooking one or more of the following points:
- The IBM/MySQL deal is just for the iSeries.
- The iSeries is the successor to the AS/400 and System 38, and thus is in a decades-old family of machines that have some weirdnesses in their DBMS support.
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In particular, DB2 on the iSeries isn’t the same thing as DB2 on other boxes, although multiple DB2s do at least nominally run there.
So while it’s interesting and nice, this deal isn’t that relevant to IBM’s mainstream software business at all.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in IBM and DB2, Mid-range DBMS, MySQL, OLTP database management, Open source RDBMS, Relational database management systems | 3 Comments »
April 23rd, 2007 Curt Monash
ANTs has now put out a press release saying what was already obvious — the company is offering middleware to run applications written for one DBMS over another backend instead. The ANTs folks fondly think their own engine is just as good as anybody else’s, but realistically customers prefer name-brand DBMS for persistent storage, so that’s what they’re offering.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in ANTs Software, Portability, transparency, and plug-compatibility | No Comments »
April 23rd, 2007 Curt Monash
Chris Kubica of Application Architects, LLC is a big FileMaker fan. And there are of course reviews and articles that agree with him, although when FileMaker sponsored this white paper they did not choose an author famed for the independence of his analysis.
So should FileMaker be included on my list of midrange OLTP DBMS or not?
Posted in FileMaker | 20 Comments »
April 19th, 2007 Curt Monash
At noon Eastern Time on Wednesday, April 25, I’ll be doing a webinar about midrange OLTP/multipurpose DBMS, sponsored by EnterpriseDB, who not coincidentally are purveyors of same. You can sign up here.
Below is some of EnterpriseDB’s verbiage promoting the event. I particularly like the part where they refer to me as a “renowned industry guru.” 
The DBMS market, once thought to be an oligopoly, is experiencing some refreshing disruption - thanks to open source-based databases that are proving viable alternatives to traditional, more costly incumbents. Whether you’re trying to control database costs or support new application development, there’s never been a better time to reevaluate your database platform strategy.
But, how can you realistically compare alternatives like MySQL and EnterpriseDB against established database platforms like Oracle, DB2, and SQL Server?
Let your applications be your guide.
In this webcast, renowned industry guru Curt Monash provides an objective context in which to evaluate and select the right DBMS based on your application’s needs. He’ll discuss how all DBMS’ features are not all created equal in the way they address application-specific demands. Particular focus will be given to the unique requirements of transaction-intensive applications.
Join us for this eSeminar and learn how to:
- Go beyond the typical feature checklists of self-proclaimed “enterprise-class” offerings to provide a more in-depth barometer of a DBMS’ true capabilities
- Define the DBMS platform requirements for a variety of transaction-intensive applications
- Delineate between must-have and nice-to-have DBMS features for your application
Posted in EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Mid-range DBMS, OLTP database management, Relational database management systems | 2 Comments »
April 18th, 2007 Curt Monash
MySQL 4.0 is an OLTP joke. MySQL 5.0, however, shows a lot of progress in terms of real transactions, foreign keys, referential integrity, triggers, stored procedures and so on. In anticipation of the MySQL user conference next week, I got a quick briefing from Paola Lubet and Murat Demiroglu at Solid Information Technology, whose SolidDB is one of the two transactional storage engines for MySQL (the other is InnoDB, now owned by Oracle).
The layer provided by MySQL actually does most of what I think of as “language processing” – parsing, optimization, drivers, triggers, stored procedures, referential integrity, etc. SolidDB is a storage engine providing actual execution. Its features and virtues include:
• Online backup. (Note: Apparently, the extra-cost InnoDB online backup product isn’t showing up on price lists these days.)
• Optimistic (as well as pessimistic) concurrency control. This can be a good performance feature for applications that have a whole lot of Adds and very few Changes.
• General reliability. Unless they really botched the port, Solid benefits from a long history of very reliable operation.
• High availability. Scheduled for alpha in early summer and beta in the fall is a high-availability option. This initial-release will be master-slave synchronous replication. More sophisticated replication could come later on, as could memory-centric performance, if market conditions seem to warrant it (I’m betting they will).
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Mid-range DBMS, MySQL, OLTP database management, Open source RDBMS, Relational database management systems, solidDB | 2 Comments »
April 18th, 2007 Curt Monash
Edit: This post has largely been superseded by this more recent one defining mid-range relational DBMS.
I find myself defining a new product category – midrange OLTP/multipurpose DBMS. (Or just midrange DBMS for brevity.) Nothing earthshaking here; I’m simply referring to those products that: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, IBM and DB2, Ingres, Intersystems and Cache', Microsoft and SQL*Server, Mid-range DBMS, MySQL, OLTP database management, Open source RDBMS, Oracle, Progress, Apama, and DataDirect, Relational database management systems, Sybase, solidDB | 7 Comments »
April 16th, 2007 Curt Monash
The site move went fine, for the most part. Everything’s at the new host. Please comment away.
Even better, my email addresses at dbms2.com and monash.com (both firstnamelastname, and I check them both) are now with different hosts. The chance of a simulataneous outage is much reduced.
Posted in About this blog | 1 Comment »
April 13th, 2007 Curt Monash
The blog is being moved from one hosting provider to another. Comments made today might get lost in the transition. The weekend won’t be so hot either. After that it should be fine.
Posted in About this blog | No Comments »
April 11th, 2007 Curt Monash
The fourth Monash Letter is now posted for Monash Advantage members (just 3 pages this time). It’s about forthcoming M&A in data warehouse DBMS, something that seems likely just because of the large number of current players. Some of the observations are:
- Oracle needs to buy somebody, because of its rather dire product problems at the data warehouse high end. And it’s very much in keeping with their recent behavior to do so.
- Teradata could be acquired sooner than people think. While there are tax considerations preventing an outright sale, these should be obviated if all of the current NCR is taken private. What’s more NCR minus Teradata is exactly the kind of healthy, slow-growth, niche company that private equity loves.
- DATAllegro is a natural merger partner for somebody. Their technical differentiation is almost DBMS-independent, so it could be easy to roll them into a larger overall product strategy. And they have enough market traction to have proved some non-trivial value.
- Kognitio seems desperate these days, with several odd or even underhanded marketing tactics. But they do have MPP bitmap software, something Sybase sorely lacks. So there’s an obvious potential combination between those two.
Technorati Tags: NCR, Teradata, Oracle, DATAllegro, Kognitio, Sybase, private equity, data warehouse, database management, software
Posted in DATAllegro, Data warehousing, Kognitio and WX2, Oracle, Relational database management systems, Sybase, Teradata | 2 Comments »
April 11th, 2007 Curt Monash
ANTs Software is in essence a “public venture capital” outfit, with over $100 million in market capitalization and negligible revenue. It also features some interesting ideas in OLTP data management, a new management team (as of last year), and a new strategy. ANTs’ new strategy, in my opinion, stands a better chance of success than its predecessor, which in essence was to tell large enterprises “Throw out Oracle and use ANTs DB instead for your most mission-critical OLTP apps, because it’s faster, cheaper, and compatible.”
There actually are two prongs to ANTs’ new strategy. One of them, however, is a Big Secret that the company adamantly insists I not write about, notwithstanding that it is pretty much spelled out in this press release. The other is high-performance OLTP for specialized apps, in defense, telecom, financial trading, etc. The best way to summarize what “high-performance” means is this: When I asked what the technical sweet spot for ANTs DB, Engineering VP Rao Yendluri said “Half a million updates per second.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in ANTs Software, Memory-centric data management, Relational database management systems | 2 Comments »
April 6th, 2007 Curt Monash
I had a nice conversation yesterday with Jim Mlodgenski of EnterpriseDB, covering both generalities and EnterpriseDB-specific stuff. Many of the generalities were predictable, and none were terribly shocking. Even so, I am dressed as Captain Obvious, and shall repeat a few of the ones I found interesting below:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Database theory and practice, EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Hierarchies, networks, graphs, and trees, Mid-range DBMS, OLTP database management, Open source RDBMS, Relational database management systems | 2 Comments »
April 4th, 2007 Curt Monash
For a couple of months, I’ve been pushing everybody to switch their subscriptions from individual blogs to my integrated feed, because I write about closely related subjects on several different blogs. There are two subscription options, RSS/XML (via Feedburner) and e-mail (via Feedblitz), both of which can be found via this link or this one or, for that matter, on the Monash Information Services home page.
But I just heard today from a customer who was having trouble subscribing via Bloglines. Fortunately, Feedblitz e-mail worked for her just fine. Is anybody else having difficulties too? Please let me know! I really want you to have the full integrated-feed scoop.
Posted in About this blog | 2 Comments »
April 4th, 2007 Curt Monash
It’s been quite a while since anything substantive-sounding emerged from Calpont. They now have an odd one-page web site, with essentially no substance other than a tagline suggesting they’re shipping product (not bloody likely) and the names, titles, and email addresses of the president and seven vice-presidents. Only two of those officers were listed on the May, 2006 version of the site. Does anybody have an idea what may or may not be going on?
(Quick refresher: Calpont was developing a SQL processing chip, and designing an appliance around it. Whether this appliance would have disks or be all in-memory changed from time to time, a flexibility that was made possible by the apparent fact that none of these boxes actually shipped.)
Technorati Tags: Calpont
Posted in Calpont, Data warehouse appliances, Data warehousing | 2 Comments »
April 3rd, 2007 Curt Monash
The consistently outstanding blog Serious About Consulting has a detailed article about HP Neoview. I must admit, however, to some skepticism about the Neoview project. Part of this is just the fact that a data warehouse appliance outfit that’s never gotten around to briefing me — ever — clearly doesn’t have its marketing act together. Also, I’ve never heard much about them competitively from anybody except Greenplum.
That said — as Jerry Held reminded me in a recent Vertica-related call, there’s no cosmic architectural reason why they couldn’t make it work. And if anybody’s going to see HP first competitively, it’s going to be Sun/Greenplum and maybe Teradata, and I’ll confess to not having chatted with Teradata for approximately six months.
Want to continue getting great research about DBMS, analytics, and other technologies related to data management? Then subscribe to our feed, by RSS/Atom or e-mail! We recommend taking the integrated feed for all our blogs, but blog-specific ones are also easily available.
Technorati Tags: HP, Neoview
Posted in Data warehouse appliances, Data warehousing, HP and Neoview, Relational database management systems | No Comments »
April 3rd, 2007 Curt Monash
For close to a decade, I’ve been pointing out that true enterprise business intelligence will require a lot of custom KPIs. Basically, each decision-maker needs her own private dashboard and set of alerts, with a bunch of custom metrics that she can tweak to support the way her own personal brain best operates.
To date the BI vendors still haven’t gotten the message … but suppose they did. Depending on the frequency of refresh, the result could be one hell of an analytic processing load.
Want to continue getting great research about DBMS, analytics, and other technologies related to data management? Then subscribe to our feed, by RSS/Atom or e-mail! We recommend taking the integrated feed for all our blogs, but blog-specific ones are also easily available.
Technorati Tags: Business activity monitoring, BAM, key performance indicators, KPIs, dashboards, business intelligence, data warehouses
Posted in Data warehousing | No Comments »
April 1st, 2007 Curt Monash
If rumors are to be believed, Oracle, Google, and Apple are close to agreeing on a mega-blockbuster three-way merger. Just the personality combinations are amazing, starting with close friends Jobs and Ellison — perhaps the two greatest entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley, and both with impeccable taste – and the traditionally sloppy, generation-younger Page and Brin. But let’s jump straight to some of the possible business and technology ramifications.
The Macintosh could become a serious Windows competitor. The Mac is quietly making an enterprise comeback anyway. Business intelligence, dashboards, and the like are constantly in the throes of UI re-invention. (I have some articles I the works about why the industry never seem to get them right, but in the mean time here is my UI overview article from last year.)
Whole new generations of personal/pervasive computing devices could evolve. Apple obviously is a huge personal-electronic-device player with the iPod and upcoming iPhone. Google has looked into cell phones as well. Designing cool devices will not be a problem. The issue is making them integrate really well with enterprise systems. I favor speech interfaces, myself.
Enterprise information management could be transformed. Oracle is batting about 0-for-the-decade in search. Google has is selling a lot of not-terribly-useful low-end enterprise search boxes. There’s room for both to do a lot better. Ex-Oracle executive Dennis Moore has some good ideas in that regard.
Links:
There’s one catch, however: On April 1, rumors generally should not be taken too seriously.
Want to continue getting great research about DBMS, analytics, and other technologies related to data management? Then subscribe to our feed, by RSS/Atom or e-mail! We recommend taking the integrated feed for all our blogs, but blog-specific ones are also easily available.
Technorati Tags: Oracle, Google, Apple, merger, April Fool’s Day
Posted in Oracle | 1 Comment »