DBMS product categories

Analysis of database management technology in specific product categories. Related subjects include:

February 7, 2012

Hadoop-related market categorization

I wasn’t the only one to be dubious about Forrester Research’s Hadoop taxonomy (or lack thereof). GigaOm’s Derrick Harris was as well, and offered a much superior approach of his own. In Derrick’s view, there’s Hadoop, Hadoop distributions, Hadoop management, and Hadoop applications. Taking those out of order, and recalling that no market categorization is ever precise:

Let’s drill down into that last one. Derrick refers to Hadoop distributions as “products” that:

package a set of Hadoop projects (MapReduce, Hive, Sqoop, Pig, etc.) in a way that in theory makes them integrate more naturally, and to run both smoothly and securely.

While that’s a reasonable recitation of the idea’s benefits, I’d rather say that a “distribution” of open source software comprises: Read more

February 1, 2012

Couchbase update

I checked in with James Phillips for a Couchbase update, and I understand better what’s going on. In particular:

Read more

January 24, 2012

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 and enterprise database choices in general

Microsoft is launching SQL Server 2012 on March 7. An IM chat with a reporter resulted, and went something like this.

Reporter: [Care to comment]?
CAM: SQL Server is an adequate product if you don’t mind being locked into the Microsoft stack. For example, the ColumnStore feature is very partial, given that it can’t be updated; but Oracle doesn’t have columnar storage at all.

Reporter: Is the lock-in overall worse than IBM DB2, Oracle?
CAM: Microsoft locks you into an operating system, so yes.

Reporter: Is this release something larger Oracle or IBM shops could consider as a lower-cost alternative a co-habitation scenario, in the event they’re mulling whether to buy more Oracle or IBM licenses?
CAM: If they have a strong Microsoft-stack investment already, sure. Otherwise, why?

Reporter: [How about] just cost?
CAM: DB2 works just as well to keep Oracle honest as SQL Server does, and without a major operating system commitment. For analytic databases you want an analytic DBMS or appliance anyway.

Best is to have one major vendor of OTLP/general-purpose DBMS, a web DBMS, a DBMS for disposable projects (that may be the same as one of the first two), plus however many different analytic data stores you need to get the job done.

By “web DBMS” I mean MySQL, NewSQL, or NoSQL. Actually, you might need more than one product in that area.

January 18, 2012

Notes from the Couch blogs

Couchbase in general, and CouchDB project founder Damien Katz in particular, are to some extent walking away from CouchDB. That is:

Even so:

The story unfolded in a bombshell post by Damien, and clarification follow-ups by Damien and by Couchbase CEO Bob Wiederhold. The meatiest of the three was probably Damien’s follow-up, in which he said, among other things:
Read more

January 10, 2012

A couple of links explaining Cloudera Manager

Predictably, I wasn’t pre-briefed on the details of Oracle’s Big Data Appliance announcement today, and an inquiry to partner Cloudera doesn’t happen to have been immediately answered.* But anyhow, it’s clear from coverage by Larry Dignan and Derrick Harris that Oracle’s Big Data Appliance includes:

In other words, it’s a lot like getting Cloudera Enterprise,* plus some hardware, plus some other stuff.

*Edit: About 2 minutes after I posted this, I got email from Cloudera CEO Mike Olson. Yes, the Oracle Big Data Appliance bundles Cloudera Enterprise.

That raises an anyway recurring question: What exactly is Cloudera Manager? Read more

November 23, 2011

Hope for a new PostgreSQL era?

In a comedy of briefing errors, I’m not too clear on the details of my client salesforce.com’s new PostgreSQL-as-a-service offering, nor exactly on what my clients at VMware are bringing to the PostgreSQL virtualization/cloud party. That said:

So I think it would be cool if one or the other big company put significant wood behind the PostgreSQL arrow.

*While Vertica was originally released using little or no PostgreSQL code — reports varied — it featured high degrees of PostgreSQL compatibility.

November 21, 2011

Some big-vendor execution questions, and why they matter

When I drafted a list of key analytics-sector issues in honor of look-ahead season, the first item was “execution of various big vendors’ ambitious initiatives”.  By “execute” I mean mainly:

Vendors mentioned here are Oracle, SAP, HP, and IBM. Anybody smaller got left out due to the length of this post. Among the bigger omissions were:

Read more

November 21, 2011

Analytic trends in 2012: Q&A

As a new year approaches, it’s the season for lists, forecasts and general look-ahead. Press interviews of that nature have already begun. And so I’m working on a trilogy of related posts, all based on an inquiry about hot analytic trends for 2012.

This post is a moderately edited form of an actual interview. Two other posts cover analytic trends to watch (planned) and analytic vendor execution challenges to watch (already up).

Read more

November 12, 2011

Clarifying SAND’s customer metrics, positioning and technical story

Talking with my clients at SAND can be confusing. That said:

A few months ago, I wrote:

SAND Technology reported >600 total customers, including >100 direct.

Upon talking with the company, I need to revise that figure downward, from > 600 to 15.

Read more

October 23, 2011

NoSQL notes

Last week I visited with James Phillips of Couchbase, Max Schireson and Eliot Horowitz of 10gen, and Todd Lipcon, Eric Sammer, and Omer Trajman of Cloudera. I guess it’s time for a round-up NoSQL post. :)

Views of the NoSQL market horse race are reasonably consistent, with perhaps some elements of “Where you stand depends upon where you sit.”

Read more

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