RE: {Spam?} The future of databases?

> Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:21:02 +0000 > From: obnoxio@serendipita.com > Subject: Re: {Spam?} The future of databases? > CC: informix-list@iiug.org > > Ian Michael Gumby wrote: > > Ok, > > > > Here are two articles that came up in a google search that happen to > > have caught my eye. > > http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/121709-big-three-database-vendors-diverge.html?page=1 > > http://www.itworldcanada.com/news/big-three-database-vendors-disagree-on-hadoop/139613-pg2 > > > > If they look similar, its because both articles are from the same author. > > > > The point, for those who are reading challenged, is that unlike the > > clown, Hadoop and HBase have some merit and that they've caught the eyes > > of some senior management types. IBM, Microsoft and Oracle should be > > concerned because of this on several different levels. > > I never said HBase has no merit. I said it has no merit to the people > who'd buy IDS. Cisco buys a lot of IDS, but they haven't bought one > great-big-fuck-off system, they've bought hundreds of little systems (is > what I understand from the blurb, anyway). Same with K-mart or whoever > else buys a lot of Informix. They don't buy great-big-fuck-off single > Informix systems, they buy hundreds or thousands of small systems. I > don't know all Informix's customers, but I've been to hundreds and I've > never seen any of them big enough to justify HBase. > Funny. I've seen startups w less money than a Hyatt, Peapod, K-Sears, TransUnion, etc ... using Hadoop/Hive/HBase. As to cost... Answer me this... Dual Socket, quad core Intel server (8 cores total). How much to put IDS EE on that machine as a single node? No discounting, MFSR price. For under 5K, you can build the following in a 1U or 2U high box... 2 socket, 8 core Intel server (5500 family current generation), 4 1TB 3.5" SATA drives and 32GB of memory. 10 Nodes is a small 'cloud'. That's 50K. So how big do you have to be for you to afford that? BTW, if you don't care about putting them in a rack, you could build them in PCs, go with just i7 chips (4 cores) and DDR2 memory. Custom built, you could build this for ~$800.00 (usd) a node. (Actually less) Granted this doesn't remove the database altogether. And its not a solution where a general purpose database is a good fit. But then again, you can feed a relational engine like Postgress off this configuration. (oops. I meant to say IDS. Now why would I mention Postgress? ;-) But in DW work where you have lots of data, its got its merits. ;-) Remember that First Union 27TB of data from the 90's? That's an application where this would fit. (Ooops! That was XPS, my bad. I didn't mean to embarrass IBM for dis'ing the better warehouse machine in favor of DB2... ;-) > What possible use is HBase to them? > > And even though Informix has a great BI architecture, it's not seen as a > BI platform, so even if it was reasonable to integrate HBase somehow AND > it actually worked, someone would have to start selling IDS as a BI > platform. You mean that IBM will actually sell and market IDS? You're right. I'm dreaming. Timmy sent me a great care package and I'm not willing to share. ;-) (How is Timmy these days? Is he still in LA?) But yes, you are correct. IDS isn't a BI platform. It is however a general purpose RDBMs that has a very well designed framework that allows for extensibility. So designing something to sit on IDS would be interesting. But that's a discussion that will not take place in public. ;-) We'll just have to see. -G _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141665/direct/01/