
At Oracle, Closed May be the New Open. Whither MySQL?
I hope I can be forgiven the cute headline. It speaks to a series of events that were heard in Oracle Open World messaging, where the word “open” appeared much less frequently than in years past. Oracle is fortifying its borders, opening new fronts in its market battles, and slowly closing itself off from some […]

EMC Jumps Into ADBMS Appliance Game
The Data Computing Appliance, first deliverable from EMC’s acquisition of Greenplum, was announced last month, only 75 days after the acquisition closed, and it doesn’t lack for ambition. Pat Gelsinger, EMC CEO, pointed to the high level opportunity: unlocking the “hidden value” of enormous and growing data assets every company is increasingly holding, and often […]

Making Enterprise Applications Social: Looking at the Intranet and OpenSocial
Just in case you’ve been spending time on a deserted island, you might not know that the Web these days has been moving rapidly towards a profoundly more social and interconnected version of itself. It was just over a year…

Database Benchmarks – The Gift That Keeps on Giving
Yes, I know – not everyone believes database benchmarks are useful. My position is that there is value in benchmarks’ role in helping engineers wring out bottlenecks, bugs and performance impediments in their products. In a conversation I recently had with Berni Schiefer, Distinguished Engineer and manager of the DB2 UDB Performance and Advanced Technology […]

IBM Acquires Netezza – ADBMS Consolidation Heats Up
IBM’s bid to acquire Netezza makes it official; the insurgents are at the gates. A pioneering and leading ADBMS player, Netezza is in play for approximately $1.7 billion or 6 times earnings. When it entered the market in 2001, it catalyzed an economic and architectural shift with an appliance form factor at a dramatically different […]

Aster Data Adds Columnar Storage, Puts Stake in Ground for Hybrid Multistores
Aster Data has announced its new version, nCluster 4.6, which now includes a column data store, staking a claim as the first ADBMS to combine SQL and MapReduce on a hybrid row and column MPP system. While its R&D has hitherto been focused on enabling advanced in-database analytic processing in its flagship “Data-Analytics Server, ” […]

Attunity Scores a Win With RMS CDC Support
Today’s email brought a reminder of an old, valued data format: RMS. When I posted about Attunity earlier this year, I noted the value of its replication and changed data capture (CDC) technology as the major software infrastructure vendors continue to look at ways to consolidate the management of their customer’s data assets. Attunity is […]

Kalido “Cascades” Continue Cadence on Designed DW Development
Kalido‘s ongoing evangelization of automation for governed, designed data warehouses has delivered fine results for the small, Massachusetts-based firm. In a recent conversation, the team shared recent results: a profitable fiscal year, with a Q4 that was up 35% and momentum that carried into the traditionally slow Q1 with 25% year over year growth. Since […]

Wrapping Up TDWI – Agile? You Bet. And You Should.
I’ve posted twice about TDWI’s San Diego event, and I still haven’t exhausted the thoughts I wanted to share. That’s a measure of just how important and successful I think the show was. Three things jumped out at me: The audience is back, and it’s ready to spend. The event was buzzing; I was told […]