Data analytics is becoming increasingly more important in the way companies conduct their business nowadays, and the need for increased processing power and storage is equally growing. Systems should be able to handle massive amounts of data, preferably with a minimum amount of maintenance. Data warehouse appliances answer this need of companies, as they can store and process these data flows and are delivered with integrated smart management systems, resulting in a low TCO and increased scalability.
IBM have been a leading provider for these kind of technologies, and have always endeavoured to produce the newest and most performant hard- and software on the market. In 2010, IBM purchased Netezza, a company founded in 1999 that focused on producing data ware house appliances, to fit in their Big Data roadmap for the years to come. Netezza appliances were considered to be among the top players in this field, catering for the need to handle intense data workloads that todays analytical software solutions require.
Recently IBM rebranded Netezza as part of the PureData systems offering, and the offering is now called IBM PureData System for Analytics.
It is important to understand what makes Netezza so performant as an appliance. It all comes down to the AMPP (Asymmetrical Massive Parallel Processing) engine that resides under the hood. At the heart of Netezza lies a high-performance Linux host, which is distributing the queries received from the BI front-end applications among several nodes. These nodes are so-called S-Blades, which can be seen as small individual servers, who each have their own processors and processing capabilities, along with a database accelerator. Netezza also uses IBMs patented data filtering using Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). There are several versions of Netezza, and depending on the version the amount of S-Blades can vary between one and several hundreds. If more computing power is required, more S-Blades can be added to the system if there is still room available in the rack. This allows for a highly scalable solution, which can grow progressively if needed. The storage is covered by multiple disk drives, so that multiple data streams can be processed in parallel. Through this architecture, Netezza can deliver 10 to 100 times the query performance of traditional DWH systems. And as an easy-to-use appliance, the system delivers these exceptional results out of the box, with no indexing or performance tuning required.
Even -normally time-consuming- tasks such as installation, handling upgrades, and ensuring high availability and business continuity are vastly simplified, saving time and resources. The Netezza platform allows you and your company to make decisions with maximum clarity while taking performance for granted. While Netezza has built itself on delivering data warehouse appliances, it's the output of those appliancesthe business analytics and their insights and ideas and discoveriesthat reflect the real potential of IBM Netezza.
element61 can help you understand the potential of IBM Netezza for your company. We can help design your data warehouse in such a way that it makes use of the full potential of the data warehouse appliance and where needed migrate from your existing environments.
Contact us for more information on IBM Netezza or our service offerings in this area.