TDWI Best Practices Report | Next Generation Data Warehouse Platforms
October 1, 2009
If you’re a data warehouse professional—or you work closely with one—you’ve probably noticed the many new options for data warehouse platforms that have appeared this decade. We’ve seen the emergence of new categories of data warehouse (DW) platforms, such as data warehouse appliances and software appliances. A new interest in columnar databases has led to several new vendor products and renewed interest in older ones. Open source Linux is now commonin data warehousing, and open source databases, data integration tools, and reporting platforms have come out of nowhere to establish a firm foothold. In the hardware realm, 64-bit computing has enabled larger in-memory data caches, and more vendors now offer MPP architectures. Leading database vendors have added more features and products conducive to data warehousing.
Those are mostly features within the data warehouse platform, especially its database. There are also growing practices that are demanding support from the platform, including real-time integration between the data warehouse platform and operational applications, various types of advanced analytics, and reusable interfaces exposed through Web services or service-oriented architecture (SOA). Furthermore, a number of data warehouse platforms and other business intelligence platforms are now readily available through software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud computing.
The good news is that the options for data warehouse platforms have recently become far more numerous. The bad news is that it’s difficult for data warehouse professionals and their business sponsors to keep track of these advancements and select the ones that are appropriate for their needs. To help organizations understand the many new options available to them, this report catalogs the new data warehouse platform products, features, and techniques that have appeared this decade, plus notable advances in more established data warehouse platforms. As examples, the report mentions many vendors and their products. Many organizations are planning the next generation of their data warehouse, and this report provides information that can be instrumental for such planning. The focus is on technology, but this report also explains how technology’s adoption in next generation data warehouse platforms is driven by real-world business and organizational needs and requirements.
Content Provided by
TDWI, IBM, Aster Data Systems, HP, Infobright, Kognitio, Microsoft, Oracle, Sybase, Teradata Aster