Vertica Systems

Analysis of columnar data warehouse DBMS vendor Vertica Systems. Related subjects include:

August 18, 2010

More on temp space, compression, and “random” I/O

My PhD was in a probability-related area of mathematics (game theory), so I tend to squirm when something is described as “random” that clearly is not. That said, a comment by Shilpa Lawande on our recent Flash/temp space discussion suggests the following way of framing a key point:

If everybody else is cool with it too, I can live with that. :)

Meanwhile, I talked again with Tim Vincent of IBM this afternoon. Tim endorsed the temp space/Flash fit, but with a different emphasis, which upon review I find I don’t really understand. The idea is:

My problem with that is: Flash typically has lower write than read IOPS (I/O per second), so being (relatively) write-intensive would, to a first approximation, seem if anything to disfavor a workload for Flash.

On the plus side, I was reminded of something I should have noted when I wrote about DB2 compression before:

Much like Vertica, DB2 operates on compressed data all the way through, including in temp space.

August 16, 2010

Vertica’s innovative architecture for Flash, plus more about temp space than you perhaps wanted to know

Vertica is announcing:

In other words, Vertica has succumbed to the common delusion that it’s a good idea to put out half-baked press releases the week of TDWI conferences. But if we look past that kind of all-too-common nonsense, Vertica is highlighting an interesting technical story, about how the analytic DBMS industry can exploit solid-state memory technology.

*Upgrades to Vertica FlexStore to handle Flash memory, actually released as part of Vertica 4.0

** With Fusion I/O

To set the context, let’s recall a few points I’ve noted in the past:

Taken together, those points tell us:

For optimal price/performance, analytic DBMS should support databases that run part on Flash, part on disk.

While all this is a future for some other analytic DBMS vendors, Vertica is shipping it today.* What’s more, three aspects of Vertica’s architecture make it particularly well-suited for hybrid Flash/disk storage, in each case for a similar reason – you can get most of the performance benefit of all-Flash for a relatively low actual investment in Flash chips:  Read more

June 21, 2010

What kinds of data warehouse load latency are practical?

I took advantage of my recent conversations with Netezza and IBM to discuss what kinds of data warehouse load latency were practical. In both cases I got the impression:

There’s generally a throughput/latency tradeoff, so if you want very low latency with good throughput, you may have to throw a lot of hardware at the problem.

I’d expect to hear similar things from any other vendor with reasonably mature analytic DBMS technology. Low-latency load is a problem for columnar systems, but both Vertica and ParAccel designed in workarounds from the getgo. Aster Data probably didn’t meet these criteria until Version 4.0, its old “frontline” positioning notwithstanding, but I think it does now.

Related link

May 12, 2010

Quick reactions to SAP acquiring Sybase

SAP is acquiring Sybase. On the conference call SAP said Sybase would be run as a separate division of SAP (no surprise). Most of the focus was on Sybase’s mobile technology, which is forecast at >$400 million in 2010 revenues (which would be 30%ish of the total). My quick reactions include: Read more

April 29, 2010

Vertica update

Last month, Vertica’s CEO Ralph Breslauer quit,* and Vertica made it sound like there would be a new CEO late in April. And indeed, as of April 29, there was. He’s a guy I’ve never heard of before named Chris Lynch, apparently quite the sales machine builder. The most substance I’ve found is a pair of Mass High Tech articles — the latter exceedingly typo-ridden — to the general effect that:

Read more

April 16, 2010

Story of an analytic DBMS evaluation

One of our readers was kind enough to walk me through his analytic DBMS evaluation process. The story is:

Notes on the Vertica vs. ParAccel selection include: Read more

March 19, 2010

Vertica update

I caught up with Jerry Held (Chairman) and Dave Menninger (VP Marketing) of Vertica for a chat yesterday. The immediate reason for the call was that a competitor had tipped me off to the departure of Vertica CEO Ralph Breslauer, which of course raises a host of questions. Highlights of the call included:

NDA parts of the conversation also gave me the impression that Vertica is moving forward just as eagerly as its peers. I.e., I didn’t uncover any reason to think that Ralph’s departure is a sign of trouble, of the company being shopped, etc. Read more

February 22, 2010

February 2010 data warehouse DBMS news roundup

February is usually a busy month for data warehouse DBMS product releases, product announcements, and other real or contrived data warehouse DBMS news, and it can get pretty confusing trying to keep those categories of “news” apart.*  This year is no exception, although several vendors – including Teradata and Netezza – are taking “rolling thunder” approaches, doing some of their announcements this month while holding others back for March or April.

*I probably have it worse than most people in that regard, because my clients run tentative feature lists and announcement schedules by me well in advance, which may get changed multiple times before the final dates roll around. I also occasionally miss some detail, if it wasn’t in a pre-briefing but gets added at the end.

Anyhow, the three big themes of this month’s announcements are probably:

Read more

February 22, 2010

Vertica 4.0

Vertica briefed me last month on its forthcoming Vertica 4.0 release. I think it’s fair to say that Vertica 4.0 is mainly a cleanup/catchup release, washing away some of the tradeoffs Vertica had previously made in support of its innovative DBMS architecture.

For starters, there’s a lot of new analytic functionality. This isn’t Aster/Netezza-style ambitious. Rather, there’s a lot more SQL-99 functionality, plus some time series extensions of the sort that financial services firms – an important market for Vertica – need and love. Vertica did suggest a couple of these time series extensions are innovative, but I haven’t yet gotten detail about those.

Perhaps even more important, Vertica is cleaning up a lot of its previous SQL optimization and execution weirdnesses. In no particular order, I was told: Read more

February 11, 2010

Intelligent Enterprise’s Editors’/Editor’s Choice list for 2010

As he has before, Intelligent Enterprise Editor Doug Henschen

(Actually, he’s really called it an “award.”)

Read more

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