• 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.

• 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.

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.

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…

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.

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

In this benchmark, the Sun Fire X4800 M2 server equipped with eight Intel® Xeon® E7-8870 processors and 4TB of Samsung’s Green DDR3 memory, is nearly 3x faster than the best published eight-processor result posted by an IBM p570 server equipped with eight Power 6 processors and running DB2. Moreover, Oracle Database 11g running on the Sun Fire X4800 M2 server is nearly 60 percent faster than the best DB2 result running on IBM’s x86 server.

Let’s have a closer look at this claim, starting with the first part: “nearly 3x faster than the best published eight-processor result posted by an IBM p570 server“. Interestingly, Oracle do not lead by comparing their new leading x86 result with IBM’s leading x86 result. Instead they choose to compare their new result to an IBM result from 2007, exploiting the fact that even though this IBM result was on a different platform, it uses the same number of processors. Of course, we all know that the advances in hardware, storage, networking, and software technology over half a decade are simply too great to form any basis for reasonable comparison. Thankfully, most people will see straight through this shallow attempt by Oracle to make themselves look better than they are. I cannot imagine any reasonable person claiming that Oracle’s x86 solutions offer 3x the performance of IBM’s Power Systems solutions, when comparing today’s technology. I’m sure most people will agree that this first comparison is simply meaningless.

Okay, now let’s look at the second claim: “nearly 60 percent faster than the best DB2 result running on IBM’s x86 server“. Oracle now compare their new leading x86 result with IBM’s leading x86 result. However, if you look at the benchmark details, you will see that IBM’s result uses half the number of CPU processors, CPU cores, and CPU threads. If you look at performance per core, the Oracle result achieves 60,046 tpmC per CPU core, while the IBM result achieves 75,367 tpmC per core. While Oracle claims to be 60% faster, if you take into account relevant system size and determine the performance per core, IBM is actually 25% faster than Oracle.

Finally, let’s not forget the price/performance metric from these benchmark results. This new Oracle result achieved US$.98/tpmC, whereas the leading IBM x86 result achieved US$.59/tpmC. That’s correct, when you determine the cost of processing each transaction for these two benchmark results IBM is 39% less expensive than Oracle. (BTW, I haven’t had a chance yet to determine if Oracle Used their Usual TPC Price/Performance Tactics for this benchmark result, as the result details are not yet available to me; but if they have, the IBM system will prove to be even less expensive again than the Oracle system.)

Benchmark results are as of January 17, 2012: Source: Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC), www.tpc.org.
Oracle result: Oracle Sun Fire X4800 M2 server (8 chips/80 cores/160 threads) – 4,803,718 tpmC, US$.98/tpmC, available 06/26/12.
IBM results: IBM System p 570 server (8 chips/16 cores/32 threads) -1,616,162 tpmC, US$3.54 /tpmC, available 11/21/2007. IBM System x3850 X5 (4 chips/40 cores/80 threads) – 3,014,684 tpmC, US$.59/tpmC, available 09/22/11.

1. IBM DB2 Welcomes Oracle Database/HP Itanium Customers
2. New IBM DB2 vs. Oracle Database Advertising Campaign
3. A Closer Examination of Oracle’s “Database Performance” Advertisement
4. Comparing Price for Oracle Exadata and IBM Smart Analytics System
5. IBM DB2 Strikes Another Blow to Oracle Database

As you can see, there is a strong DB2/Oracle Database competitive theme running through these popular topics. And here are the top posts of 2011, as judged by reader participation. In other words, as judged by the number of comments (or perhaps the amount of controversy).

1. New IBM DB2 vs. Oracle Database Advertising Campaign (20 comments)
2. A Closer Examination of Oracle’s “Database Performance” Advertisement (19 comments)
3. The Future of the NoSQL, SQL, and RDBMS Markets (12 comments)
4. Update on the IBM DB2 “SQL Skin” for Migrating from Sybase ASE (8 comments)
5. Industry Benchmark Result for DB2 pureScale: SAP Transaction Banking (TRBK) Benchmark (7 comments)