August 8, 2005

Down with database consolidation!

As with all changes in information technology, the move to DBMS2 will largely be one of evolution. But it does have a couple of revolutionary aspects.

Short-term, the biggest change is a renunciation of database and DBMS vendor consolidation. Consolidation never has worked, it never will work, and as data integration technologies keep improving it’s not that important anyway.

IBM and Oracle offer really great, brilliantly complex data warehousing technology. But if you want the most bang for the buck, forget about them, and go instead with a specialty vendor. Depending on the specifics of your situation, Teradata, Netezza, Datallego, WhiteCross, or SAP may offer the best choice, and that list could be even longer.

Similarly, for generic OLTP data management, cheap and/or open source options are getting ever more attractive. Microsoft is a serious contender for applications that previously only Oracle and IBM could handle, while MySQL and maybe Ingres are moving up the food chain right behind.

In many cases, these alternative technologies are lower-cost across the board: Lower purchase price, lower ongoing maintenance fees, and lower administrative costs.

So what, again, is the case for consolidation?

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