The Era of Microsoft on Windows-Only Is Over – OMG

Written by Donald Feinberg and Merv Adrian On 25-Sep-2017 at Ignite, Microsoft announced general availability of SQL Server 2017, now supporting both Windows and Linux platforms, as well as support for containers. It can now book revenue for a product already widely used by early release customers. What does this imply for the $34.4 billion database management system (DBMS) Market? Over theContinue reading “The Era of Microsoft on Windows-Only Is Over – OMG”

Perspectives on Hadoop Part Two: Pausing Plans

By Merv Adrian and Nick Heudecker  In the first post in this series , I looked at the size of revenue streams for RDBMS software and maintenance/support and noted that they amount to $33B, pointing out that pure play Hadoop vendors had a high hill to climb. (I didn’t say so specifically, but in 2014, Gartner estimates thatContinue reading “Perspectives on Hadoop Part Two: Pausing Plans”

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”

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”

BYOH – Hadoop’s a Platform. Get Used To It.

When is a technology offering a platform? Arguably, when people build products assuming it will be there. Or extend their existing products to support it, or add versions designed to run on it. Hadoop is there. The age of Bring Your Own Hadoop (BYOH) is clearly upon us.  Specific support for components such as PigContinue reading “BYOH – Hadoop’s a Platform. Get Used To It.”

Hadoop 2013 – Part One: Performance

It’s no surprise that we’ve been treated to many year-end lists and predictions for Hadoop (and everything else IT) in 2013. I’ve never been that much of a fan of those exercises, but I’ve been asked so much lately that I’ve succumbed. Herewith, the first of a series of posts on what I see asContinue reading “Hadoop 2013 – Part One: Performance”

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”