Perspectives on Hadoop: Procurement, Plans, and Positioning

I have the privilege of working for the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, covering information management with a strong focus for the past few years on an emerging software stack called Hadoop. In the early part of 2015, that particular technology is moving from early adopter status to early majority in its marketplaceContinue reading “Perspectives on Hadoop: Procurement, Plans, and Positioning”

Which SQL on Hadoop? Poll Still Says “Whatever” But DBMS Providers Gain

Since Nick Heudecker and I began our quarterly Hadoop webinars, we have asked our audiences what they expected to do about SQL several times, first in January 2014. With 164 respondents in that survey, 32% said “we’ll use what our existing BI tool provider gives us,” reflecting the fact that most adopters seem not to wantContinue reading “Which SQL on Hadoop? Poll Still Says “Whatever” But DBMS Providers Gain”

DBMS Legacies are Very Sticky

Donald Feinberg (@Brazingo) & Merv Adrian (@merv) Every so often, there’s a wave of interest in the “imminent retirement” of one or more legacy database management systems (DBMS). Usually, it’s because someone with very little knowledge of the actual use and distribution of the products becomes enthusiastic about someone’s sales pitch, or an anecdote orContinue reading “DBMS Legacies are Very Sticky”

Hadoop Investments Continue: Teradata, HP Jockey For Position

Interest from the leading players continues to drive investment in the Hadoop marketplace. This week Teradata made two acquisitions – Revelytix and Hadapt – that enrich its already sophisticated big data portfolio, while HP made a $50M investment in, and joined the board of, Hortonworks. These moves continue the ongoing effort by leading players. 4 ofContinue reading “Hadoop Investments Continue: Teradata, HP Jockey For Position”

Aspirational Marketing and Enterprise Data Hubs

In the Hadoop community there is a great deal of talk of late about its positioning as an Enterprise Data Hub. My description of this is “aspirational marketing;” it addresses the ambition its advocates have for how Hadoop will be used, when it realizes the vision of capabilities currently in early development. There’s nothing wrongContinue reading “Aspirational Marketing and Enterprise Data Hubs”

AAA is Not Enough Security in the Big Data Era

Talk to security folks, especially network ones, and AAA will likely come up. It stands for authentication, authorization and accounting (sometimes audit). There are even protocols such as Radius (Remote Authentication Dial In User Service, much evolved from its first uses) and Diameter, its significantly expanded (and punnily named) newer cousin, implemented in commercial andContinue reading “AAA is Not Enough Security in the Big Data Era”

Hadoop Summit Recap Part Two – SELECT FROM hdfs WHERE bigdatavendor USING SQL

Probably the most widespread, and commercially imminent, theme at the Summit was “SQL on Hadoop.” Since last year, many offerings have been touted, debated, and some have even shipped. In this post, I offer a brief look at where things stood at the Summit and how we got there. To net it out: offerings todayContinue reading “Hadoop Summit Recap Part Two – SELECT FROM hdfs WHERE bigdatavendor USING SQL”

That Exciting New Stuff? Yeah… Wait Till It Ships.

A brief rant here: I am asked with great frequency how this RDBMS will hold off that big data play, how data warehouses will survive in a world where Hadoop exists, or whether Apple is done now that Android is doing well. There is a fundamental fallacy implicit in these questions. –more–

2013 Data Resolution: Avoid Architectural Cul-de-Sacs

I had an inquiry today from a client using packaged software for a business system that is built on a proprietary, non-relational datastore (in this case an object-oriented DBMS.) They have an older version of the product – having “failed” with a recent upgrade attempt. The client contacted me to ask about ways to integrate thisContinue reading “2013 Data Resolution: Avoid Architectural Cul-de-Sacs”

Amazon Redshift Disrupts DW Economics – But Nothing Comes Without Costs

At its first re:Invent conference in Late November, Amazon announced Redshift, a new managed service for data warehousing. Amazon also offered details and customer examples that made AWS’  steady inroads toward enterprise, mainstream application acceptance very visible. Redshift is made available via MPP nodes of 2TB (XL) or 16TB (8XL), running Paraccel’s high-performance columnar, compressedContinue reading “Amazon Redshift Disrupts DW Economics – But Nothing Comes Without Costs”