Oracle
Analysis of software titan Oracle and its efforts in database management, analytics, and middleware. Related subjects include:
- Oracle TimesTen
- (in The Monash Report)Operational and strategic issues for Oracle
- (in Software Memories) Historical notes on Oracle
- Most of what’s written about in this blog
Oracle is buying Endeca
Oracle is buying Endeca. The official talking points for the deal aren’t a perfect match for Endeca’s actual technology, but so be it.
In that post, I wrote:
… the Endeca paradigm is really to help you make your way through a structured database, where different portions of the database have different structures. Thus, at various points in your journey, it automagically provides you a list of choices as to where you could go next.
That kind of thing could help Oracle with apps like the wireless telco product catalog deal MongoDB got.
Going back to the Endeca-post quote well, Endeca itself said:
Inside the MDEX Engine there is no overarching schema; each data record carries its own metadata. This enables the rapid combination of a wide range of structured and unstructured content into Latitude’s unified data model. Once inside, the MDEX Engine derives common dimensions and metrics from the available metadata, instantly exposing each for high-performance refinement and analysis in the Discovery Framework. Have a new data source? Simply add it and the MDEX Engine will create new relationships where possible. Changes in source data schema? No problem, adjustments on the fly are easy.
And I pointed out that the MDEX engine was a columnar DBMS.
Meanwhile, Oracle’s own columnar DBMS efforts have been disappointing. Endeca could be an intended answer to that. However, while Oracle’s track record with standalone DBMS acquisitions is admirable (DEC RDB, MySQL, etc.), Oracle’s track record of integrating DBMS acquisitions into the Oracle product itself is not so good. (Express? Essbase? The text product line? None of that has gone particularly well.)
So while I would expect Endeca’s flagship e-commerce shopping engine products to flourish under Oracle’s ownership, I would be cautious about the integration of Endeca’s core technology into the Oracle product line.
Categories: Columnar database management, Endeca, Oracle | 7 Comments |
Text data management, Part 1: Confusion
This is Part 1 of a three post series. The posts cover:
- Confusion about text data management.
- Choices for text data management (general and short-request).
- Choices for text data management (analytic).
There’s much confusion about the management of text data, among technology users, vendors, and investors alike. Reasons seems to include:
- The terminology around text data is inaccurate.
- Data volume estimates for text are misleading.
- Multiple different technologies are in the mix, including:
- Enterprise text search.
- Text analytics — text mining, sentiment analysis, etc.
- Document stores — e.g. document-oriented NoSQL, or MarkLogic.
- Log management and parsing — e.g. Splunk.
- Text archiving — e.g., various specialty email archiving products I couldn’t even name.
- Public web search — Google et al.
- Text search vendors have disappointed, especially technically.
- Text analytics vendors have disappointed, especially financially.
- Other analytic technology vendors ignore what the text analytic vendors actually have accomplished, and reinvent inferior wheels rather than OEM the state of the art.
Above all: The use cases for text data vary greatly, just as the use cases for simply-structured databases do.
There are probably fewer people now than there were six years ago who need to be told that text and relational database management are very different things. Other misconceptions, however, appear to be on the rise. Specific points that are commonly overlooked include: Read more
Categories: Analytic technologies, Archiving and information preservation, Google, Log analysis, MarkLogic, NoSQL, Oracle, Splunk, Text | 2 Comments |
Oracle NoSQL is unlikely to be a big deal
Alex Williams noticed that there will be a NoSQL session at Oracle OpenWorld next week, and is wondering whether this will be a big deal. I think it won’t be.
There really are three major points to NoSQL.
- Dynamic schemas. This is the only one of the three that truly depends on NoSQL.
- Scale-out short-request processing. If you want to scale out efficiently at high request volumes, you’re best off not using all the flexibility SQL/relational DBMS offer. (In particular, you don’t want to do cross-node joins). Not coincidentally, a number of the best scale-out offerings were built to be NoSQL.
- Open source. Doing a relational DBMS is a big project. It seems easier to build NoSQL ones.
Oracle can address the latter two points as aggressively as it wishes via MySQL. It so happens I would generally recommend MySQL enhanced by dbShards, Schooner, and/or dbShards/Schooner, rather than Oracle-only MySQL … but that’s a detail. In some form or other, Oracle’s MySQL is a huge player in the scale-out, open source, short-request database management market.
So that leaves us with dynamic schemas. Oracle has at least four different sets of technology in that area:
- As Workday noticed years ago, MySQL can be used as a functional, basic key-value store.
- Oracle also has XML-based Berkeley DB/SleepyCat kicking around.*
- The XML extensions to Oracle’s core DBMS could be alleged to have a dynamic schema/NoSQL flavor. (Blech.)
- A dynamic schema argument could also be made for object-oriented DBMS technology. While Oracle doesn’t to my knowledge exactly sell that, it does have the Tangosol Coherence line of technology, with a potentially similar programming model.
If Oracle is now refreshing and rebranding one or more of these as “NoSQL”, there’s no reason to view that as a big deal at all.
*That’s Mike Olson’s former company, if you’re keeping score at home.
Categories: MySQL, NoSQL, Object, OLTP, Open source, Oracle, Parallelization, Schooner Information Technology, Structured documents | 13 Comments |
Some notes on Hadoop (mainly) and appliances
1. EMC Greenplum has evolved its appliance product line. As I read that, the latest announcement boils down to saying that you can neatly network together various Greenplum appliances in quarter-rack increments. If you take a quarter rack each of four different things, then Greenplum says “Hooray! Our appliance is all-in-one!” Big whoop.
2. That said, the Hadoop part of EMC ‘s story is based on MapR, which so far as I can tell is actually a pretty good Hadoop implementation. More precisely, MapR makes strong claims about performance and so on, and Apache Hadoop folks don’t reply “MapR is full of &#$!” Rather, they say “We’re going to close the gap with MapR a lot faster than the MapR folks like to think — and by the way, guys, thanks for the butt-kick.” A lot more precision about MapR may be found in this M. C. Srivas SlideShare.
3. On its latest earnings call, Oracle clearly said it would introduce a Hadoop appliance, versus just hinting at a Hadoop appliance the prior quarter. The money quote was: Read more
Categories: Data warehouse appliances, eBay, EMC, Greenplum, Hadoop, MapR, MapReduce, Open source, Oracle | 2 Comments |
HP systems soundbites
It is widely rumored that there will be a leadership change at HP (Meg Whitman in, Leo Apotheker out). In connection with that, I found myself holding forth on points such as:
- HP needs to make outstanding enterprise systems again.
- They fell away from that target under Mark Hurd, but they surely can hit it again, based on the remnants of DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation), Tandem, the higher-end part of Compaq, and of course the original HP systems group.
- In particular:
- Rumors say that Oracle Exadata 1 boxes, made by HP, were much lower quality than Exadata 2 boxes made by Sun.
- HP Neoview was a waste of good engineering talent.
- I’d like to see a few excellent Vertica appliances.
- I hope the SAP HANA appliances go well, whenever HANA finally becomes a serious product.
- The general move from disk to solid-state memory should offer some opportunities.
Categories: Exadata, HP and Neoview, SAP AG, Solid-state memory, Vertica Systems | Leave a Comment |
Teradata Columnar and Teradata 14 compression
Teradata is pre-announcing Teradata 14, for delivery by the end of this year, where by “Teradata 14” I mean the latest version of the DBMS that drives the classic Teradata product line. Teradata 14’s flagship feature is Teradata Columnar, a hybrid-columnar offering that follows in the footsteps of Greenplum (now part of EMC) and Aster Data (now part of Teradata).
The basic idea of Teradata Columnar is:
- Each table can be stored in Teradata in row format, column format, or a mix.
- You can do almost anything with a Teradata columnar table that you can do with a row-based one.
- If you choose column storage, you also get some new compression choices.
Categories: Archiving and information preservation, Columnar database management, Data warehousing, Database compression, Oracle, Rainstor, Teradata | 7 Comments |
Oracle Database Appliance soundbites
It turns out that Oracle’s new small appliance isn’t really an Exadata Mini-Me. Rather, the Oracle Database Appliance is — well, it seems to be a box with an Oracle DBMS in it. (Plus Oracle RAC and so on.) The whole thing is priced for and targeted at the SMB (Small & Medium Business) market, whatever that means to Oracle.
I’m not hugely optimistic about the Oracle Database Appliance. Rather, my thoughts — lightly edited from a chat with a reporter — include:
- This doesn’t solve Oracle’s SMB problems, which include:
- Oracle software is too difficult and costly to administer. The appliance will make a modest dent in that one, but it’s not any kind of game-changer, because the issues relate to the antique design of the Oracle DBMS. (I.e., I think ongoing database administration is a bigger deal than, say, one-time system set-up.)
- SMBs use third-party applications whenever they can, with an increasing preference for SaaS. Application and SaaS vendors prefer non-Oracle alternatives when they are feasible.
- Thus, Oracle is not well positioned to thrive in the SMB market … except maybe through its MySQL subsidiary, but that has a long way to go too.
- Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Solution teaches us that Oracle should focus on selling a thick stack of technology to its highest-end customers, and that’s exactly what Oracle does focus on.
Categories: MySQL, Oracle, Software as a Service (SaaS) | 13 Comments |
Exadata Mini-Me?
It is being suggested that Oracle is about to introduce small, (relatively) cheap Exadata boxes. Key quotes include:
We estimate a price point of $100K-$200K, well below Exadata prices of $500K-$2.5M.
and
- The Exadata could fit under a desk;
- Customers wouldn’t need a database admin to maintain the Exadata environment;
- The focus of the Exadata mini would be ease of management over running complex enterprise applications.
The whole thing sounds appealing, but I must confess that the idea of “zero-DBA” Oracle takes me aback. It might look OK at demo time, but I have trouble imagining it working in live production situations.
Categories: Exadata, Oracle | 14 Comments |
The database architecture of salesforce.com, force.com, and database.com
salesforce.com, force.com, and database.com use exactly the same database infrastructure and architecture. That’s the good news. The bad news is that salesforce.com is somewhat obscure about technical details, for reasons such as:
- A long-ago marketing decision to not give infrastructure details, so as to convey a “Don’t worry; we’ll take care of everything” message.
- Even so, a long-ago and perhaps now-regretted marketing decision to disclose and even exaggerate salesforce.com’s reliance on Oracle, as part of an early-days attempt to prove salesforce was using enterprise-class technology.
- A desire to hide the recipe for salesforce.com’s secret sauce.
- Force of habit — I’m not sure salesforce even knows how to tell its technical story with any clarity.
Actually, salesforce.com has moved some kinds of data out of Oracle that previously used to be stored there. Besides Oracle, salesforce uses at least a file system and a RAM-based data store about which I have no details. Even so, much of salesforce.com’s data is stored in Oracle — a single instance of Oracle, which it believes may be the largest instance of Oracle in the world.
Categories: Data models and architecture, Market share and customer counts, Memory-centric data management, Object, OLTP, Oracle, salesforce.com, Software as a Service (SaaS) | 19 Comments |
Virtual data marts in Sybase IQ
I made a few remarks about Sybase IQ 15.3 when it became generally available in July. Now that I’ve had a current briefing, I’ll make a few more.
The key enhancement in Sybase IQ 15.3 is distributed query — what others might call parallel query — aka PlexQ. A Sybase IQ query can now be distributed among many nodes, all talking to the same SAN (Storage-Area Network). Any Sybase IQ node can take the responsibility of being the “leader” for that particular query.
In itself, this isn’t that impressive; all the same things could have been said about pre-Exadata Oracle.* But PlexQ goes somewhat further than just removing a bottleneck from Sybase IQ. Notably, Sybase has rolled out a virtual data mart capability. Highlights of the Sybase IQ virtual data mart story include: Read more