February 5, 2013

Comments on Gartner’s 2012 Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management Systems — evaluations

To my taste, the most glaring mis-rankings in the 2012/2013 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management are that it is too positive on Kognitio and too negative on Infobright. Secondarily, it is too negative on HP Vertica, and too positive on ParAccel and Actian/VectorWise. So let’s consider those vendors first.

Gartner seems confused about Kognitio’s products and history alike.

Gartner is correct, however, to note that Kognitio doesn’t sell much stuff overall.

* non-existent

In the cases of HP Vertica, Infobright, ParAccel, and Actian/VectorWise, the 2012 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management’s facts are fairly accurate, but I dispute Gartner’s evaluation. When it comes to Vertica:

That said, I defer to Gartner’s opinion that HP Vertica’s sales momentum has disappointed, even if against higher expectations than one might have for vendors with 1/10 of Vertica’s installed base.

2 years ago, I simply said “What Gartner said in connection with Ingres is too inaccurate to deserve detailed attention.” This year’s Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management isn’t that bad on the subject of Actian,* but it’s not great either. Writing mainly about Actian’s VectorWise, Gartner dings it for both features and bugginess, and correctly notes that VectorWise is only suitable for fairly small data warehouses. But Gartner gives VectorWise higher marks than Exasol even so. Gartner also writes that VectorWise has a “long tradition of having loyal supporters”, notwithstanding that VectorWise’s initial release was less than 3 years ago.

*Ingres’ new name, in honor of a 2011 pivot that seems to already have been deprecated

What the 2012/2013 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management says about ParAccel isn’t too different on the facts from what I wrote in December, but Gartner is more enthused than I am. Basically:

That Gartner ranks ParAccel ahead of HP Vertica baffles me. Perhaps Gartner views benchmarks as more significant than I do, or is otherwise judging ParAccel to have an important advantage in performance.

I also am in substantial agreement with the 2012/2013 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management about Infobright facts, but this time I’m the one with the more favorable interpretation. I agree that Infobright is a bit limited in features, in the areas Gartner cites and in analytic platform capabilities as well. Even so, Infobright is far ahead of VectorWise in — also low-priced — sales, and ahead in product stability and features too. Yet Gartner gives Infobright vastly lower marks than Actian. I suspect that the essence of our disagreement is that Gartner sees Infobright’s focus on machine-generated data as something that “limits market expansion”, while I see machine-generated data as something that is by every measure* growing to be a majority of the whole.

*By raw volume that’s been true for a while. But if we adjust for value and so on, the crossover is arguably still a way off.

I’ll run through the other vendors cited in the 2012 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management more quickly, in approximate declining order of Gartner’s rankings.

Comments

6 Responses to “Comments on Gartner’s 2012 Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management Systems — evaluations”

  1. Comments on Gartner’s 2012 Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management Systems — concepts | DBMS 2 : DataBase Management System Services on February 5th, 2013 8:26 am

    […] The 2012 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management Systems is out. I’ll split my comments into two posts — this one on concepts, and a companion on specific vendor evaluations. […]

  2. Jacob on February 6th, 2013 12:23 pm

    Regarding Calpont, I couldn’t find whether it has intra-query parallelism on SMP machines. I did find in Infobright’s doc that it does not have intra-query parallelism, so this might be a non-trivial advantage.

  3. Eli Somos on February 6th, 2013 5:15 pm

    Curt, your vitriol knows no bounds. While I may defend your right to free speech, the diatribe you spout sometimes is beyond belief. Is it any wonder that the BI/DW vendor community believes that you only write favorably about those who are paying for your so-called advisory services, while others who refuse to sign up are left to be on the receiving end of an acerbic and cussid tongue?

    There are better ways to represent one’s opinions, but pushing out blog posts of this ever-so over-the-top negative nature is not the way. Regards.

  4. Curt Monash on February 7th, 2013 2:37 am

    Eli,

    I think you’re underestimating the intelligence of the industry. They know better than to make the mistake you’re accusing them of.

    Particularly immune to that error, I’d think, are the non-clients about whom I write favorably and the clients who I criticize. 😉 And those groups, taken together, comprise most of the industry, as there are few companies about which I write uniformly negatively or positively.

  5. Vladimir on February 8th, 2013 5:04 am

    I am disappointed with Vertica’s low rating. I represent that customer which Gartner mentions (one respondent’s organization, located in a country without technical support personnel at the time of deployment, set up its system entirely unaided). And after one year of using it I can say with confidence that we made right decision among several pretenders from top right part of the Magic Quadrant. Vertica is the best!

  6. M-A-O-L » Gartner’s 2012 Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management Systems on February 27th, 2013 3:06 pm

    […] Comments on Gartner’s 2012 Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management Systems — evalu…: To my taste, the most glaring mis-rankings in the 2012 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management are that it is too positive on Kognitio and too negative on Infobright. Secondarily, it is too negative on HP Vertica, and too positive on ParAccel and Actian/VectorWise. […]

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