I read this article by Curt Monashwhere he mentions that” Data warehouse appliance and software appliance vendors like to claim that they’ve worked out just the right hardware configuration(s), and that a single configuration is correct for a fairly broad range of workloads.” In short I agree with Curt but I think he needs to have a better understanding of the vision (we call N Sight). Netezza gets it for sure!!

Then I ran across this study by IBM The New Voice of the CIO which represents the insights and vision of 2,500 CIOs from 78 countries and 19 industries. Pat Toole, CIO of IBM, said “CIOs are investing in business analytics capabilities to help them improve decision-making at all levels.”

Well, now I have to raise some points that I think are worth consideration. I also once again want to remind the readers that I am not an analyst. What I am, however, is someone that has extensive experience with database technology and many facets of data processing in general. And I do not speak for Netezza but I can surely speak of them because not only am I an employee but also a former user and someone who has lived database and processing solutions for thirty years - working directly with the business.

Let us take a look at several highlights from the aforementioned study.
1. 83% of respondents identified business intelligence and analytics, as the way they will enhance their organization’s competitiveness
Netezza from day one has said they have a purpose-built appliance for BI and analytics. The biggest challenges that are the hardest to process and optimize, but most valuable to the business are perfect for Netezza to tackle.. Let’s not forget that Netezza is the company that changed this industry forever. Whatever Netezza does, it keeps its roots in mind and does nothing to jeopardize its simplicity, ease of use and appliance differentiation.

2. 71% of CIOs are planning to make additional investments in risk management and compliance
Netezza understands this and with Mantra, a compliance package that is now included with Netezza TwinFin systems, Companies that are concerned about security and compliance with the combination can now collect and analyze data that will identify and in the future, predict, risks and violations of compliance-based on rules and profiles.

3. 76% of CIOs anticipate building a centralized infrastructure in the next five years
Once again an area that Netezza clearly has a vision on. Right off the website - “Our vision is for multiple appliances deployed in grids, globally scalable and manageable; of information management simplified, of data easily integrated, easily managed in a global analytic platform and easily exploited in analytic applications.” From my perspective, this alone demonstrates how Netezza appliances built to serve various purposes across the enterprise will allow for the integration, distribution, protection and use of our most valuable asset- data. Businesses can truly gain insight and sustain competitive edge in this dynamic business landscape.

 
What Relational database appliance or, for that matter, relational database software can process an algorithm on-stream against the data of three credit bureaus, containing records for every individual in the US and examine over 80 credit attributes with over 300 branch points to apply a score that identifies the best record - IN 20 MINUTES? This is just one example of how the simplicity of the Netezza appliance is used for processing that would typically be handled across a bunch of servers, a number of different software packages and people with different skills to achieve results. I won’t even discuss the complexity of the infrastructure and days of processing this would typically take.

The world is changing and we will see purpose-built solutions through innovation and partnerships that will be optimized for functions that have specific processing requirements. This, along with the surrounding connectors and certified partner tools to support a totally connected intelligent data infrastructure that will construct, distribute and allow end user consumption and utilization of the resulting smart data products, is the future of our data-driven world.Even Larry wants to be an appliance company but doesn’t agree that OLTP and analytic processing have different requirements especially in I/O and memory utilization.

To conclude, I agree with Curt but Netezza get’s it. Putting much more thought into the business problem and next to none into the processing of that problem is what Netezza enables for both database and non-database challenges. Watch out world -Netezza is here to stay and will continue to change the industry. Vision is what created Netezza and vision is what will keep our focus and resources on business value and results and away from complexity.

I was reading a post from my CEO Jim Baum Viewing Open World with an Open Mind. The general theme is exactly what I would expect from the CEO of a company that is clearly the leader in its space. As a matter of fact in my humble opinion Netezza is the only true appliance company and without a doubt the only producer of an analytic machine that meets the definition of an appliance according to Merriam-Webster - appliance – “a piece of equipment for adapting a tool or machine to a special purpose”. The other major characteristic of an appliance is simplicity. There should be very little to do other then make a few settings and hit the start button.  

I am looking for the individual that can show me any other appliance that you stand up on day one, load and query data on day two and immediately realize performance that is mind blowing without any tuning. There is none other than Netezza. Oracle is an appliance in assembly,  but not in functionality, and as such does not meet the definition. Think about it - does a refrigerator also cook your food?

Netezza gets this and continues to improve its capabilities to include new and powerful capabilities while maintaining the characteristics, operations and most importantly the simplicity of an appliance. Jim Baum is focused on the customer, their needs, and their satisfaction. This customer focus has been a core tenet of Netezza since the beginning when I was a customer – and bred into the culture by former CEO and Founder Jit Saxena who is today Chairman of the Board. Simplicity is core to the product and core to conducting business.

At different times in my career I  have been a  user ,  an employee and a  of course a  customer of Oracle. Oracle is reactionary for sure as demonstrated by my interaction  with them  in 2002 as a customer looking at Netezza for analytics. At that time I  suggested to  a senior executive at Oracle that they take a look at this technology because in reality Oracle did not have a good answer for dealing with large volumes of data in an analytic environment. His response to me was “Bob appliances are going nowhere”. No matter how you look at it Oracle took their eye off the ball and reacted to a market instead of planning for it. This is what differentiates Netezza from Oracle and the rest of the pack.

Jim wrote about   Netezza’s three areas of focus being  deeper, wider and higher analytics. Deeper is  especially  exciting. The ability to hide the parallelism from the developer who can build and execute non-database complex algorithms without  having to  deal with code that organizes and breaks up the data across a complex infrastructure  for performance is amazing. Wider will provide advancements that will take on the future of business intelligence and complex analytics as defined by the marketplace and implemented by the company that recognized a different approach was needed to service the demand for using data to find the cracks where the opportunity for additional revenue  may have fallen  through.  Higher is another game - changer and partners are beginning to produce and brand appliances from Netezza that contain end-to-end functionality for solving specific business analytic and reporting challenges without the need to deal with infrastructure. In the not too distant future we will see a fully connected intelligent data exchange that is defined by the business and requires very little technical and operations staff to deploy and manage.

Any business that needs to compete in today’s volatile business environment has got to use their data intelligently to make quick decisive decisions based on current customer actions to stay ahead of the pack. The smart ones are using Netezza and the rest will be. Too many technologists today think that the complexity is necessary and I am here to tell you that KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) is still the best approach and the leader of SIMPLE is Netezza.

- First Liberated

Hey there it’s me, First Liberated, aka Bob Doyle and affectionately called BFD (a story for another day) by some old colleagues at Oracle and some who have sold to me as a customer of Oracle. You’ve got to love Larry. I always thought he was a pretty amazing guy with a great story and an incredible knack for messaging. During my days at Oracle I had a great respect for Ken Jacobs who is a pretty bright guy and I think he still holds the role of vice president of product strategy in Oracle’s server technologies division. I remember doing benchmarks and having opportunities to have direct conversations with Ken. I think I might have installed the first ALPHA code version for OPS on AIX in maybe 1989-1990 at a company in Rochester NY—telecommunications. I am really trying my memory on this one as it was a long time ago. There was also a time when I was involved in the initial testing of Oracle on DEC Unix with Scott and Steve Foote, brothers who were a pleasure to work with and in the minority as far as contacts I have stayed in touch with over my 30 years in this business and not sure where they ended up. Maybe they will see this and we can reconnect, that would be great.

So I need to be very clear and let you all know that I always did and always will believe that Oracle has produced a great database that was built and optimized for years based on OLTP. And, this was where the real business needs were until technology advanced to where data could be collected and the need for analytics began to grow beyond the capabilities of a shared everything architecture. Even Larry and Ken could not predict this change and re-architecting was not in the cards. Oracle tried to adjust but at the expense of complexity and added functionality that required understanding of how to use the same product for two totally different purposes when its core design was around transaction processing. If you have learned anything about me I am very much in favor of picking the right tool for the right job and with that said it really turns out that Oracle and Netezza could be an ideal solution for providing an Information Factory.
 
If Oracle is serious about being a hardware vendor and an appliance vendor then the perfect partner is Netezza to strengthen the Oracle position with a relationship that provides customers with a reference architecture for information management and delivery that services end-to-end seamless almost real time integration of corporate wide information into the appropriate environments for servicing the needs of the end user.  Recognizing what you do well and using partners to augment your weaknesses is what enforces your position with clients and establishes you as the thought leader in solving real world challenges. There is a real powerhouse here that just needs cooperation and recognition of the individual strengths by two very different architectures built for two very different types of processing. The truth be told, Oracle with its wide variety of software able to provide in-the-box core transactional processing needs for everyone and ability to integrate that data near real time into the Netezza appliance for servicing complex analytics would establish a kick-ass foundation for the Enterprise Information Factory. But in order for this to succeed, Oracle must to admit that inherently it is not built for Business Intelligence and analytics.

As for IBM, they make some damn good hardware, after all Netezza chose it. Recent press shows that Oracle has an eye on IBM and has issued a challenge. With this challenge issued by Larry I do have to wonder why Oracle included in its  rules this statement “Hardware associated with companies acquired by IBM after October 7, 2009 shall not be considered IBM hardware.” Is there something out there they are really worried about? I tend to read too much into stuff sometimes but it seems a little bit of an odd statement to make for a test that will be completed by January. How many acquisitions are finalized in 2 months?

Larry, you just need to pick your partners before what seems to be a fear becomes reality. We all want to win and compatibility with competition could change our world once again.
 
First Liberated

I recently read an article by Ryan Tate larry-ellison-cant-be-bothered-with-the-facts. We really do need to look at the brilliance behind the marketing that built a company that is almost 30 billion dollars and left customers burdened with trying to make the software meet the expectations that were set by Oracle.
 
With the recent passing of the anniversary of Exaggerdata and now Oracle has announced version 2 , the idea of mixing operational and analytic processing on the same infrastructure for me just does not seem like something a technologist would want to do. What technologist in their right mind would ever deploy the business critical life blood operational systems of the enterprise on one appliance that also supported business intelligence and analytics? If you know that person tell him/her that this isn’t really the best time to be in the unemployment lines. Is this what Oracle means when they say OLTP and Data Warehouse? Can someone please clarify for me exactly how they see Exaggerdata being used?  

 
This is the problem I have with Oracle as I mentioned in this be-all-that-you-can-be-but-can-you-be-everything-to-everybody Oracle has some great technology with some very smart people but it just comes down to SMP not cutting it for analytics on BIG data. Even Teradata got that part right.  Listen again as  Mark Saponar from IBasis says it very clearly “Oracle Exadata is OK for those who don’t know any better ” IBasis-discusses-the-benefits-of-moving-from-oracle-to-Netezza.
 
The FACT is that since the announcement of Exaggerdata Netezza has added FIFTY new customers who were all using Oracle for  analytics and realized that Netezza is a much better solution that reduces cost and dramatically improves analytic processing capabilities allowing these firms to gain a competitive advantage. 

What I can say without equivocation about Netezza is that they are by no means perfect, and of course I will remind everyone that I am an employee, but only because I recognized the value the Netezza technology brings to the market and wanted to be part of it. We deliver what we advertise and I am proud to be associated with the technology and the company. Netezza takes pride in maintaining the highest level of customer satisfaction and referenceability.
 
Now in the spirit of the data liberation movement I will ask the audience and please leave your comments . Would it be of value to have an indecently run benchmark designed specifically for analytic and DW activity? Would Teradata and Oracle be willing to participate? We need to insist on fair onsite testing, full transparency, clear simple pricing, ease of doing business and full disclosure.

First Liberated

So after coming back from vacation and spending the first few days getting through emails and trying to catch up I was reminded about this specific blog from an ex colleague who also happens to be a Netezza user. It was the post by Daniel Abadi http://dbmsmusings.blogspot.com/. I thought overall it was accurate and written by someone who obviously has an eye for superior technology. The unfortunate part for me was the fact that Daniel was disappointed by the announcement because he felt it had been over-hyped and therefore took the wind out of the sails for him as far as excitement was concerned. He said: “All it means to the customers is that Netezza can now do some things that its competitors already can do. Sure lower prices and a better ability to handle mixed workloads are nice, but I was expecting something a little more radical”. As I contemplated his comments I wondered if it’s because of Netezza that we have gotten to a point where these types of improvements are just expected.  

It wasn’t too long ago that I was adding a number of CPUs, a bunch of memory and more disks along with having a major project to completely redo the physical design of the database and underlying infrastructure. This required a load of resources and time with plans that had go/ no-go decision points to ensure we were back up by Monday AM with the execution usually starting on a Friday at the COB. I am leaving out a lot of detail here but you all know exactly what this is like and the costs associated - never mind how bad it sucks when you have to make that NO-GO decision. When you are successful your lucky to get a 30% overall improvement in performance.

For me, when you can make the claim that your next generation of database is 3X faster in processing than the previous generation - that was up to 100X faster then any of the competition - you are already introducing an improvement that no other database vendor in the world can claim. Is this radical? I think it is pretty damn radical when you can offer your customers a platform that offers 2-3X performance gains along with the improvements of handling mixed workloads at a drastically lower price and enabling endless usage possibilities with the change in architecture and move to Linux. After all which other vendor has the confidence to let you take a test drive as described at this link: http://www.netezza.com/testdrive/ and see for yourself? I don’t know of any - and I can tell you from personal experience, being a customer before being an employee, that once you get your hands on this amazing technology you will never give it back. Daniel wrote his blog on the day of the announcement, but I think after some time and reaction from the customer base he may feel a little different. I would suggest attending Enzee Universe to see and feel the excitement. Register today http://www.enzeeuniverse.com/.

All I can say is Twin fin is bitchen and the rest are biters.

- First Liberated

Definitions found at   http://rippinh2o.com/

Bitchen - 1.Cool awesome. That wave’s bitchen(that wave’s awesome) 2. totally sick and awesome

Biter   - Someone who copies (bites) off everything you do –aka- annoying ass people.

Is it all over for Exaggerdata? As you can see in Phil’s post A “Fud-Machine” in Overdrive  his points further validate that Oracle is really in FUD overdrive as you read their ill informed and erratic comments in the blog Oracle approved post a_not_so_fabulous_new_release, just the mention of a non open Linux running on the FPGA’s is out there. Where did they get that information? Not from us I assure you because an FPGA has no operating system

 
I find it damn amusing that Oracle has to resort to outright misrepresentations to combat the technology of a company 100th their size. What I like is that they find it necessary to do it because we are kicking their ass in the field. So when you read all the FUD from the biggest database vendor in the world who has only gone into the appliance business because Netezza has validated the market, I can only say take it from where it comes. In my typical first liberated style as far as them being faster, cheaper and they don’t dare say simpler I say SHOW ME and I am not from Missouri.
 
Do not be fooled by imposters especially when they have more money to spread FUD then the government has thrown at the clunker buy back program. I challenge them to prove their claims and go head to head in a POC sponsored by a third party who can define a real world data warehouse test using real data and real analytics. Oracle talks about open standards and they are the least compliant with open standards and hope you use their proprietary features like PL/SQL so you cannot move. Open to Oracle is when everything you have is provided by Oracle. Not everyone is going to fall for their claims and I for one know without doubt that if I build against Netezza that moving it to another database is pretty straight forward. Not so with Oracle. There is a whole bunch of technology people out there that will not fall for their crap and you should continue to insist on all the things I have been talking about since I started the data liberators movement.
 
Demand transparent onsite testing!
Demand straightforward pricing!
Demand quick answers to complex questions!
Demand faster performance!
Demand deeper analytics!

First Liberated

Holy @%$#!! You have to take a look at this video! There has been some talk out there about Netezza having something new on its way so I went on the hunt to find out. I decided to see if I could sneak into Netezza and get a look. I got in and I found something that was definitely not the standard-looking Netezza rack, but when I got close to take a look I was thrown out by some very big dude. What I can say is that I definitely caught a quick glimpse of something new and I am hearing some very cool things about advances in the technology. As someone who recognized a different technology when Netezza came along in 2002, let me tell you that something very exciting is about to be introduced and likely to be another game changer. You can be sure that I will continue to poke around but for now take a look-see at my attempt get a sneak preview.

Stay Tuned

- First Liberated

We have finished our third and final podcast, focused on changing business requirements and how they are driving the demand for appliances. It was such a pleasure to record these and have the opportunity to gain insight from an industry expert like Mike Ferguson, who is focused specifically on business intelligence and business integration.

During this final session we had the opportunity to explore some of Mike’s perspectives on the future of appliances and analytics. How are increasing demands for information along with ever-growing data volumes going to impact the evolution of appliances? Will this become a simple process of purchasing a complete solution from one vendor that can be simply configured by the business user? Will all the physical components be integrated into a single data center rack with preinstalled software? Mike discusses his perspective on these questions and others in the podcast.

This road has been paved by Netezza who has taken the complexity out of physical database design and the infrastructure and people required to support it. One can only imagine the possibilities that lie ahead. Thanks again to Mike for his participation in this series and for discussing in details this changing and very exciting market of appliances and analytics.

- First Liberated

The latest issue of Policy Truth is now available and I encourage you to take a look. Oracle would have you believe that its database machine has overcome the performance limitations experienced by its customers for years. The new system is, after all, 10x faster than existing Oracle implementations. Not so impressive considering competing appliances have been 10-100x faster than Oracle for years now!

In this uncertain economic climate, businesses are required to be more nimble than ever, using the most accurate data to maintain existing customer relationships, add new customers and operate as efficiently as ever are issues at the forefront of most corporate strategies.

That’s why, when you are evaluating appliances, take into consideration all of your options. As the user, you are in control - so get involved, demand the truth and full disclosure, ask the tough questions and require onsite testing. And if a vendor says “no” to any of your demands simply tell them “when the phone doesn’t ring, you’ll know it’s me”.

Thank you and have a nice day.

- First Liberated

So I am looking for someone that can help me out. In reading the transcript from Oracle’s earnings call I noticed that Larry highlighted a single win of Exaggerdata against Netezza. I also noticed that he mentioned in some cases the queries ran 100 times faster than the traditional Oracle environment. He never did mention any comparison of the speed directly against Netezza. Being an early user of the platform, I personally had queries that ran thousands of times faster than they did in Oracle and that was on the first generation Netezza appliance in 2003. My tests were done by creating tables, loading data and executing queries. This was all done in a matter of hours. No indexing, no complicated partitioning strategy, no storage design and all the other crap that is required with traditional databases.

Is anyone else wondering why there is no direct comparison to timings on Netezza? Is anyone interested to know why a 23 billion dollar company would be so eager to mention a single win against a 200 million dollar appliance company? Wouldn’t it be more interesting to know how many times the smaller database appliance company beat Oracle? Well I can tell you this - it is a bigger number than 1 and continues to grow. Oracle may be 100 times our size but they will never be 100 times faster than Netezza.

Personally, I am a little suspicious of the claims. We should all pay close attention to the positioning and statements made about how well they compete against the first and only true data appliance company. Let us not lose sight of what an appliance is. According to the dictionary the definition it is an instrument, apparatus, or device for a particular purpose or use. With that I will say the Oracle database software is built to serve multiple purposes, and as I have written in the past, until you change the underlying architecture to take complete advantage of the hardware it is integrated with you will never produce a true appliance. So do not be fooled by imposters and really take some time to test thoroughly on-site. Do not let vendors do the testing because when they do it without your folks at least watching over the whole process they will cheat and you will be blindsided by the complexity when you have to implement for real.

I may work for Netezza but I have only worked for two product companies in my whole career. The first was Oracle - after I evaluated the product and recommended it be purchased while at one of the largest manufacturing companies in the world and knew then that this small database company was going to be a leader. I made a tremendous living fixing implementations of Oracle where the performance problems were preventing additional processing and hurting the productivity of analysis and reporting that was crucial to making business decisions. The second, as you know, was Netezza and after I implemented it I decided I needed to work for Netezza because they would absolutely be the leader in providing purpose-built data appliances that allow businesses to compete on analytics.

Question everything, do not take a vendor’s word on capabilities that could have a huge impact on your business and the bottom line. Prove it to yourself and do it on-site.

Netezza is changing the business of intelligence. Do not be fooled by those who are only using the word appliance for something that does not have the characteristics of the dictionary definition.

First Liberated