Announcing DB2 10 & InfoSphere Warehouse 10
Today, IBM announced DB2 10 and InfoSphere Warehouse 10. You can read about these new releases in the Press Release and on the IBM Web site. Highlights of the new releases include:
- Performance is up to 3.3x faster than previous release for complex query workloads*
- The new Adaptive Compression has provided 7x or greater overall space savings for more than one client, with some tables achieving 10x space savings**
- In DB2 10 Early Access Program testing, DB2 obtained an average of 98% compatibility with Oracle PL/SQL***
- DB2 NoSQL Graph Store Accelerates Rational Use Case by up to 3.5x****
Check out the following great video from one of our Early Access Program participants:
For more information about these releases, make sure to visit the Launch Virtual Event.
* Based on internal tests of IBM DB2 9.7 FP3 vs. DB2 10.1 with new compression features on P6-550 systems with comparable specifications using data warehouse / decision support workloads, as of 4/3/2012.
** Based on client testing in the DB2 10 Early Access Program.
*** Based on internal tests and reported client experience from 28 Sep 2011 to 07 Mar 2012.
**** Based on internal benchmark tests of Rational Jazz graph store usage, comparing DB2 10 Graph Store with Jena TDB version 0.8.10.
Baltic Bank Moves from Oracle to DB2 to Improve Performance, Lower Costs, and Increase Availability
JSC Rietumu Banka is one of the largest banks in the Baltic states. They recently migrated their data from Oracle Database on Sun servers to IBM DB2 on Power Systems servers, and enjoyed the following bebefits:
- Up to 30 times faster query performance
- 20-30% reduction in total cost of ownership
- 200% improvement in data availability
Like many major banks, JSC Rietumu Banka faced recent pressure to reduce IT costs. In particular, they were concerned with total cost of hardware, software, and staffing for their banking applications which used Oracle Database on Sun servers. After a thorough technical and financial evaluation, JSC Rietumu Banka chose to migrate their environment to DB2 on Power Systems servers.
Of course, the ease of migration was a significant factor in JSC Rietumu Banka being able to achieve these benefits. For more information about the “compatibility features” that make it easy to migrate from Oracle Database to IBM DB2, see Gartner: IBM DB2′s Maturing Oracle Compatibility Presents Opportunities, with some Limitations.
To learn more about this specific migration, read the full IBM case study.
How IBM and Oracle Approach Big Data Solutions
This blog posts refers to the definition of Big Data commonly in use today. I do not include mainframe-based solutions, which some people might argue tackle Big Data challenges.
Both IBM and Oracle are going after the Big Data market. However, they are taking different approaches. I’m going to take a few moments to have a very brief look at what both companies are doing.
First of all, Oracle have introduced an “appliance” for Big Data. IBM have not. I put the word appliance in quotes because I consider this Oracle appliance to be closer in nature to an integrated collection of hardware and software components, rather than a true appliance that is designed for ease of operation. But the more important consideration is whether an appliance even makes sense for Big Data. There is a decent examination of this topic in the following blog post from Curt Monash and the accompanying comment stream: Why you would want an appliance — and when you wouldn’t. But, regardless of your position on this subject, the fact remains that Oracle currently propose an appliance-based approach, while IBM does not.
The other area I will briefly look at is the scope of the respective vendor approaches. In the press release announcing the Oracle Big Data Appliance, Oracle claim that:
Oracle Big Data Appliance is an engineered system optimized for acquiring, organizing, and loading unstructured data into Oracle Database 11g.
IBM takes a very different approach. IBM does not see its Big Data platform as primarily being a feeder for its relational database products. Instead, IBM sees this as being one possible use case. However, the way that customers want to use Big Data technologies extend well beyond that use case. IBM is designing its Big Data platform to cater for a wide variety of solutions, some of which involve relational solutions and some of which do not. For instance, the IBM Big Data platform includes:
- BigInsights for Hadoop-based data processing (regardless of the destination of the data)
- Streams for analyzing data in motion (where you don’t necessarily store the data)
- TimeSeries for smart meter and sensor data management
- and more
So, as you can see, there are fundamental differences in the ways that IBM and Oracle are developing products for Big Data solutions. For more information, see IBM Big Data and Oracle Big Data.
NYSE Euronext uses Netezza to Manage their “Big Data”
NYSE Euronext operates multiple securities exchanges, including the New York Stock Exchange and Euronext. As you might imagine, securities exchanges present significant data management challenges. But NYSE Euronext didn’t just want to have a transactional system, they wanted to do much more with their data, further increasing the challenges. At the 2011 IBM Information On Demand (IOD) conference, NYSE Euronext described their challenges and the solution they chose. In particular, they highlight Netezza’s tremendous performance and how fast it is to get up-and-running with Netezza.
Not only is it easy to get up-and-running with Netezza, but it is easy to manage your environment on an ongoing basis. You can hear for yourself in this short video segment…
Coca Cola Bottling Move from Oracle Database to IBM DB2
At the 2011 IBM Information On Demand (IOD) Conference, Coca Cola Bottling spoke about their experiences when moving from Oracle Database to IBM DB2. I have included some very brief video segments shot at the conference below. It is really interesting to heard about the experiences and impact of switching from Oracle to IBM from the people involved.
In the following short video segment, hear how Coca Cola Bottling have changed their fix pack philosophy as a result of moving. With Oracle Database, they would avoid fix packs unless they “had to”. But with DB2, applying fix packs is much easier and faster, providing faster access to new functionality, performance improvements, and bug fixes. Also, hear about how Coca Cola Bottling have had significant data storage savings thanks to moving to DB2. Who wouldn’t want to reclaim some of that IT budget allocated for storage purchases 
And finally, hear about their experiences with performance boosts and the autonomic computing capabilities in DB2.
Get a Free Copy of the Forrester Wave™ for Enterprise Hadoop Solutions
Today, Forrester published its Wave analysis for enterprise Hadoop solutions. It has detailed coverage of the Hadoop solutions from vendors like IBM, MapR, Cloudera, Hortonworks, and others. If you are considering an enterprise Hadoop solution, such as IBM InfoSphere BigInsights, it will make for very interesting reading. You can download a free copy of the report from The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Hadoop Solutions, Q1 2012.
Oracle Reduce their Exadata Projections
In June of last year, during Oracle’s FYQ4 2011 earnings call, Larry Ellison claimed that Oracle expect more than 2,000 Exadata systems to be installed in fiscal year 2012. His exact quote follows. You can read the full transcript on SeekingAlpha at Oracle’s CEO Discusses Q4 2011 Results.
Today, more than 1,000 Exadatas are installed, and we plan on tripling that number this year.
He noted that more than 1,000 systems had been installed at that time. Tripling this number yields more than 3,000. This implies that there would be more than two thousand new systems installed in FY2012.
Last month, during Oracle’s FYQ2 2012 earnings call, Larry Ellison said:
This past Q2, Oracle sold over 200 Exadata and Exalogic engineered systems. In Q3, we plan to sell over 300 Exadata and Exalogic engineered systems. In Q4, we plan to sell over 400 Exadata and Exalogic engineered systems.
Again, the full transcript is available on SeekingAlpha at Oracle’s CEO Discusses Q2 2012 Results. There is no reference to Q1 sales, but Oracle projects that Q2 + Q3 + Q4 sales of both Exadata and Exalogic will be more than 900.
A couple of things stand out here. The first is that these latest projections from Oracle are for both Exadata and Exalogic systems combined, whereas the original projection was for Exadata systems only. The second is that these latest projections from Oracle are significantly down (more than 2,000 has been revised down to whatever business they did in Q1 + more than 900 in Q2, Q3, and Q4 combined). And this significant downward revision in projections has happened in the space of just 6 months.
If you read the Q&A segment from the Q2 earnings call, it is quite interesting. An analyst asks Oracle about the downward revision in projections. There are some semi-coherent responses from Ellison and Hurd, before Hurd claims that instead of 3x growth in engineered systems, they are on track for 2.5x growth. Hmmm, unless they had a monster Q1, that doesn’t quite add up either
