Data Warehouse Appliances, Past, Present and Future
Back in June 2015 yours truly penned an article entitled ‘Data Warehouse Appliances – Past, Present and Future’.
Nearly five years later it’s interesting to consider how the world of the Data Warehouse Appliance (DWA) has changed. With cloud adoption now all the rage, it looks like the DWA has largely had its day, or has it?
Let’s take a look at IBM Netezza, EMC and Teradata’s DWA offerings in turn.
IBM Netezza
Prior to being bought by IBM, Netezza was the first data warehouse platform to market itself as a ‘Data Warehouse Appliance’ (DWA) in the early 2000s. After nearly 20 years out in the field, Netezza systems are now being actively retired by IBM.
Netezza Skimmer and Twinfin appliances became of end-of-support in June 2019. For those folks whose Netezza DWAs have hit end-of-support, there is no direct migration option on offer to ‘Netezza on something else’ or ‘Netezza in the cloud’. So, it looks like the only option on offer for Netezza users is a migration to another platform. Now doubt IBM will try and convince folks to stay in the IBM fold.
Netezza Mako appliances are due to become end-of-support over the next 3 years. Although this gives what looks like plenty of breathing room, there is a ‘gotcha’ – Mako systems can’t be expanded and there aren’t any more on offer. If you run out of Mako compute power and/or storage capacity there’s not a lot you can do. While the end-of-support date may be some way over the horizon, there’s still the need to plan for a migration.
EMC Data Computing Appliance (DCA)
EMC bought Greenplum in 2010 and quickly launched engineered systems known as the ‘Data Computing Appliance’ (DCA). Not the catchiest of names, but there you go!
The EMC DCA v3 was released in 2016. Just like IBM’s Netezza Mako systems, the DCA v3 can’t be expanded, although there is no imminent end-of-support threat.
Unlike Netezza, those running EMC DCAs can opt for a relatively simple migration to ‘Greenplum running somewhere else’. As we’ve pointed out previously, one of Greenplum’s key strengths is that it can be deployed almost anywhere. Greenplum on a Raspberry Pi anyone?
Teradata Appliances
As you would expect, the total number of Netezza and EMC appliances is dwarfed by the number of Teradata appliances out in the field. Teradata was, and is, the market leader after all.
Teradata’s move to the cloud started with the availability of Teradata on AWS in 2016, and Teradata on Azure in 2017. Prior to the general availability (GA) of Teradata on AWS and Azure, a lot of Teradata adoption was in the form of the smaller Teradata appliance (non-enterprise grade) systems.
We’ve noticed a lot of Teradata appliances, especially Teradata 2000 series systems, coming to their end-of-life (EOL) during early 2020. These systems were sold from 2012-14, a couple of years before the availability of Teradata in the cloud.
The entry level Teradata 2700 and the enterprise grade Teradata 6700H systems are similarly due to become end-of-life later this year.
What’s The Question? The Answer Is ‘The Cloud’ (like, durr!)
As suggested way back in 2015, when it comes to data warehouse platform strategy, there is now “a strong preference for ‘the cloud’ – and this means public cloud – to be the answer.”
Given that cloud that now unquestionably all the rage, it certainly feels like the end of the Data Warehouse Appliance age is upon us.
Foster Hinshaw’s famous line to characterise Netezza’s game-changing simplicity was that ‘you don’t tune your fridge for milk’.
Maybe so, but it looks like there market for fridges is finally coming to an end!