February 8th, 2012 — Data management
January 23rd, 2012 — Data management
If you’re a MySQL user, tell us about your adoption plans by taking our current survey.
Back in late 2009, at the height of the concern about Oracle’s imminent acquisition of Sun Microsystems and MySQL, 451 Research conducted a survey of open source software users to assess their database usage and attitudes towards Oracle.
The results provided an interesting snapshot of the potential implications of the acquisition and the concerns of MySQL users and even, so I am told, became part of the European Commission’s hearing into the proposed acquisition (used by both sides, apparently, which says something about both our independence and the malleability of data).
One of the most interesting aspects concerned the apparently imminent decline in the usage of MySQL. Of the 285 MySQL users in our 2009 survey, only 90.2% still expected to be using it two years later, and only 81.8% in 2014.
Other non-MySQL users expected to adopt the open source database after 2009, but the overall prediction was decline. While 82.1% of our sample of 347 open source users were using MySQL in 2009, only 78.7% expected to be using it in 2011, declining to 72.3% in 2014.
This represented an interesting snapshot of sentiment towards MySQL, but the result also had to be taken with a pinch of salt given the significant level of concern regarding MySQL future at the time the survey was conducted.
The survey also showed that only 17% of MySQL users thought that Oracle should be allowed to keep MySQL, while 14% of MySQL users were less likely to use MySQL if Oracle completed the acquisition.
That is why we are asking similar questions again, in our recently launched MySQL/NoSQL/NewSQL survey.
More than two years later Oracle has demonstrated that it did not have nefarious plans for MySQL. While its stewardship has not been without controversial moments, Oracle has also invested in the MySQL development process and improved the performance of the core product significantly. There are undoubtedly users that have turned away from MySQL because of Oracle but we also hear of others that have adopted the open source database specifically because of Oracle’s backing.
That is why we are now asking MySQL users to again tell us about their database usage, as well as attitudes to MySQL following its acquisition by Oracle. Since the database landscape has changed considerably late 2009, we are now also asking about NoSQL and NewSQL adoption plans.
Is MySQL usage really in decline, or was the dip suggested by our 2009 survey the result of a frenzy of uncertainty and doubt given the imminent acquisition. Will our current survey confirm or contradict that result? If you’re a MySQL user, tell us about your adoption plans by taking our current survey.
January 19th, 2012 — Data management
Amazon launches DynamoDB. Red Hat virtually supports JasperReports. And more.
An occasional series of data-related news, views and links posts on Too Much Information. You can also follow the series @thedataday.
* Amazon Web Services Launches Amazon DynamoDB See also blog posts from Werner Vogels and Jeff Barr, as well as reaction from DataStax and Basho.
* Jaspersoft Delivers Analytics for Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Customers JasperReports Server is embedded in Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3.0.
* Tableau 7.0 Brings Simplicity to Business Intelligence Including new Data Server for data sharing and management.
* Hortonworks to Deliver Next-Generation of Apache Hadoop Pre-announcement (emphasis on the pre).
* RainStor Announces First Enterprise Database Running Natively on Hadoop as well as partnerships with Cloudera, Hortonworks, and MapR, and support from Composite Software.
* Talend Platform for Data Services Operationalizes Information and Data A common development, deployment and monitoring environment for both data management and application integration.
* Fujitsu Launches Cloud Services as a Platform for Big Data Data Utilization Platform Services.
* All you wanted to know about Hadoop, but were too afraid to ask A graphic illustration of the various versions of Apache Hadoop.
* Oracle Database or Hadoop? Another good post from Pythian’s Gwen Shapira. See also Aaron Cordova’s Do I need SQL or Hadoop?
* Meet Code 42, Accel’s first Big Data Fund investment GigaOM has the details.
* MapR CEO Sees Big Changes in Big Data in 2012 Predictive.
* Introducing DataFu: an open source collection of useful Apache Pig UDFs LinkedIn launches open source user-defined functions.
* Big Data Needs Data Scientists, Or Quants, Or Excel Jockeys … or something.
* Career of the Future: Data Scientist [INFOGRAPHIC] Infotaining.
* Knives out for Oracle. SAP and IBM offer some perspectives on Exalytics and Big Data Appliance respectively.
* For 451 Research clients
# Information Builders uses Infobright to take BI in-memory, expands SMB reach Market development report
# RainStor launches database complement to Apache Hadoop Market development report
# Heroku’s Postgres is poised for growing interest in database as a service Market development report
* Google News Search outlier of the day: This Spud’s For All of You: “2012 Is the Year of the Potato”
And that’s the Data Day, today.
January 13th, 2012 — Data management
January 10th, 2012 — Data management
Oracle OEMs Cloudera. The future of Apache CouchDB. And more.
An occasional series of data-related news, views and links posts on Too Much Information. You can also follow the series @thedataday.
* Oracle announced the general availability of Big Data Appliance, and an OEM agreement with Cloudera for CDH and Cloudera Manager.
* The Future of Apache CouchDB Cloudant confirms intention to integrate the core capabilities of BigCouch into Apache CouchDB.
* Reinforcing Couchbase’s Commitment to Open Source and CouchDB Couchbase CEO Bob Wiederhold attempts to clear up any confusion.
* Hortonworks Appoints Shaun Connolly to Vice President of Corporate Strategy Former vice president of product strategy at VMware.
* Splunk even more data with 4.3 Introducing the latest Splunk release.
* Announcement of Percona XtraDB Cluster (alpha release) Based on Galera.
* Bringing Value of Big Data to Business: SAP’s Integrated Strategy Forbes interview with with Sanjay Poonen, President and corporate officer of SAP Global Solutions.
* New Release of Oracle Database Firewall Extends Support to MySQL and Enhances Reporting Capabilities Self-explanatory.
* Big data and the disruption curve “Many efforts are being funded by business units and not the IT department and money is increasingly being diverted from large enterprise vendors.”
* Get your SQL Server database ready for SQL Azure Microsoft “codename” SQL Azure Compatibility Assessment.
* An update on Apache Hadoop 1.0 Cloudera’s Charles Zedlewski helpfully explains Apache Hadoop branch numbering.
* Xeround and the CAP Theorem So where does Xeround fit in the CAP Theorem?
* Can Yahoo’s new CEO Thompson harness big data, analytics? Larry Dignan thinks Scott Thompson might just be the right guy for the job.
* US Companies Face Big Hurdles in ‘Big Data’ Use “21% of respondents were unsure how to best define Big Data”
* Schedule Your Agenda for 2012 NoSQL Events Alex Popescu updates his list of the year’s key NoSQL events.
* DataStax take Apache Cassandra Mainstream in 2011; Poised for Growth and Innovation in 2012 The usual momentum round-up from DataStax.
* Objectivity claimed significant growth in adoption of its graph database, InfiniteGraph and flagship object database, Objectivity/DB.
* Cloudera Connector for Teradata 1.0.0 Self-explanatory.
* For 451 Research clients
# SAS delivers in-memory analytics for Teradata and Greenplum Market Development report
# With $84m in funding, Opera sets out predictive-analytics plans Market Development report
* Google News Search outlier of the day: First Dagger Fencing Competition in the World Scheduled for January 14, 2012
And that’s the Data Day, today.
January 6th, 2012 — Data management
As I mentioned earlier this week, a major research focus for Q1 is the MySQL ecosystem, the positives and negatives of Oracle’s MySQL strategy, and the competitive overlap between MySQL, NoSQL and NewSQL.
It is impossible to think about this without reconsidering the commitments made by Oracle to customers, developers and users of MySQL in late December 2009, which played a significant part in satisfying European Commission concerns about Oracle’s acquisition of Sun.
While the commitments were both welcomed and derided when they were announced, it is worth considering today whether those commitments have been as significant in practice as they appeared to be two years ago.
For example, Oracle’s commitment to and investment in InnoDB – while positive for MySQL users – has arguably diminished the relevance of some of the storage engine-related commitments.
We will be coming to our own conclusions based on our research over the coming weeks, but I am interested in any feedback from MySQL customers, developers and users about how well Oracle has kept to its commitments and their significance in hindsight.
You can find a full list of the commitments here but the edited highlights are below:
1. Continued Availability of Storage Engine APIs.
2. Non-assertion of copyright and no requirement for a commercial license related to implementing the storage engine APIs .
3. Extension of any existing commercial storage engine licenses until December 10, 2014.
4. Commitment to continue licensing MySQL using the GNU GPL.
5. Customers would not be required to purchase support services from Oracle as a condition of obtaining a commercial license to MySQL.
6. Increase spending on MySQL research and development.
7. Commitment to create and fund a customer advisory board.
8. Commitment to create and fund a MySQL Storage Engine Vendor Advisory Board.
9. Commitment to retain the free MySQL Reference Manual.
10. Retention of annual or multi-year subscription renewals for end-users and embedded customers.
October 3rd, 2011 — Data management
We have previously speculated at The 451 Group about Oracle’s potential to respond to the growing adoption of NoSQL databases, noting that the company had a number of options at its disposal, including Berkeley DB and projects like HandlerSocket.
While some may wonder about the potential impact of Oracle NoSQL (based indeed on Berkeley DB) on the existing NoSQL vendors, I believe the launch says something very significant about NoSQL itself: specifically that its adoption is driven by more than the nature of the query language.
To get a sense of why Oracle NoSQL is significant, think about the way Oracle has traditionally responded to alternative approaches that threaten the relational model and its dominance thereof. Oracle’s approach has traditionally been to subsume the alternative approach, at least in part, into Oracle Database, nullifying the competitive threat.
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison explained the approach himself on a recent call with investors:
“We think that data should be integrated with a single database technology. That’s always been our strategy for Oracle. And it started as a relational database then we added objects, then we added text and then we’ve added a variety of other things like video and audio to the Oracle Database. We think that should be unified and that’s how we’re approaching the problem.”
As we recently covered (451 clients only), Oracle is in the process of replicating this strategy with MySQL, adding support for the ability to directly access MySQL’s InnoDB and MySQL’s Cluster’s NDB storage engines using the memcached API.
This ability to perform non-SQL querying of the database is part of the agility benefit of NoSQL, and if the term NoSQL were to be taken literally would perhaps be enough to discourage would-be NoSQL adopters from turning away from MySQL.
As our NoSQL, NewSQL and Beyond report highlighted, however, agility is just one of six key trends we see driving adoption of NoSQL databases. Scalability, performance, relaxed consistency, intricacy and necessity will not be solved by the ability to query MySQL or MySQL Cluster using the memcached API.
The launch of Oracle NoSQL is therefore a clear indication that there are trends at work here that cannot be solved by adding non-SQL querying to existing relational databases.
There is another significant factor here, which is the fact that Oracle has chose to name the product NoSQL. In one simple naming move the company has effectively disarmed the NoSQL ‘movement’.
We have previously noted that existing NoSQL vendors were turning away from the term in favor of emphasizing their individual strengths. How many of them are going to want to self-identify with an Oracle product? I’m not convinced any of them believe the brand is worth fighting for.
September 23rd, 2010 — Content management, Search
Document filters. There’s a phrase to conjure up excitement in any technologist eh? No? Didn’t think so. But look more carefully at what is going on and it does get more interesting, trust me.
I was moved to expand in this by Isys Search Software’s recent attempt at guerilla marketing at Oracle Open World which it tweeted about here:
isyssearch: ISYS goes guerrilla; kicked out of Oracle Open World party after projecting our branding on the Metreon http://tinyurl.com/272fync #oow10
Quite apart from what it says about Isys and how much it’s changed in the last two years – a bit like the nerdy guy in the playground trying to act tough – it shows how important some people – including me – think these filters have become.
There are two main companies selling products that enable the opening and viewing of myriad file formats (400 is a common number cited by both the vendors and their customers). So when a search engine comes across a Word 1997 or even something like Wordstar 4 file, how does it open it? Usually using one of two products: Oracle’s OutsideIn or Autonomy’s IDOL KeyView.
Both products came to these companies via acquisitions: Autonomy buying Verity in November 2005 and Oracle buying Stellent in 2007, (and Stellent, as it wasn’t known then, buying Inso in 2000). It’s also interesting to note that Isys still refers to them as Inso in its marketing even though the product has been called something else for years.
Like all OEM technology, these filters aren’t easily ripped out and replaced. And that’s what these two vendors like about them. It gives them a a foot in the door at software companies that they can try to expand upon, and quite often they do. The temptation of course is to use the difficulty to remove them as a point of leverage to crank up prices.
And that’s what we’re hearing Autonomy is doing from a number of vendors. We haven’t heard anything similar regarding Oracle, it should be noted. Autonomy has a reasonably significant OEM technology stream and as we have mentioned previously Autonomy regularly brags about its OEM wins, without specifying whether its KeyView or the full IDOL engine being OEMd. Incidentally after that earlier post Autonomy contacted us to say that KeyView isn’t the result of the acquisition of Verity and all it bought was the name. That’s despite what was said at the time, including its own press release shortly after the acquisition bragging about its features. But then Autonomy’s marketing these days increasingly requires a willing suspension of disbelief.
Isys has had this technology for a while but never sold it separately. But now it is finding quite a bit of success among software vendors nervous about having a key piece of technology owned by Autonomy or Oracle because they’re often search and/or content management companies; two markets in which both companies play. dtSearch, another veteran OEM provider also provides similar filters.
So for the first time in a long time, ISVs have a choice beyond the main two in filters and in their close relatives, connectors, the software to connect search engines to databases, content management systems and other repositories. In the often incestuous world of information management software, where vendors both compete and sell to one another, these have become points of leverage that customers may not notice in terms of functionality, but they certainly do in terms of the price they have to pay for their software.
May 20th, 2010 — Data management, M&A
SAP faces a number of challenges to make the most of its proposed $5.8bn acquisition of Sybase, not the least of which being that the company’s core enterprise applications do not currently run on Sybase’s database software.
As we suggested last week that should be pretty easy to fix technically, but even if SAP gets its applications, BI software and data warehousing products up and running on Sybase ASE and IQ in short-order, it still faces a challenge to persuade the estimated two-third of SAP users that run on an Oracle database to deploy Sybase for new workloads, let alone migrate existing deployments.
Even if SAP were to bundle ASE and IQ at highly competitive rates (which we expect it to do) it will have a hard time convincing die-hard Oracle users to give up on their investments in Oracle database administration skills and tools. As Hasso Plattner noted yesterday, “they do not want to risk what they already have.”
Hasso was talking about the migration from disk-based to in-memory databases, and that is clearly SAP’s long-term goal, but even if we “assume for a minute that it really works” as Hasso advised, they is going to be a long-term period where SAP’s customers are going to remain on disk-based databases, and SAP is going to need to move at least some of those to Sybase to prove the wisdom of the acquisition.
A solution may have appeared today from an unlikely source, with IBM’s release of DB2 SQL Skin for Sybase ASE, a new feature for its DB2 database product that provides compatibility with applications developed for Sybase’s Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) database. Most Sybase applications should be able to run on DB2 unchanged, according to the companies, while users are also able to retain their Sybase database tools, as well as their administration skills.
That may not sound like particularly good news for SAP or Sybase, but the underlying technology could be an answer to its problems. DB2 SQL Skin for Sybase ASE was developed with ANTs Software and is based on its ANTs Compatibility Server (ACS).
ACS is not specific to DB2. It is designed to is designed to support the API language of an application written for one database and translate to the language of the new database – and ANTs maintains that re-purposing the technology to support other databases is a matter of metadata changes. In fact the first version of ACS, released in 2008, targeted migration from Sybase to Oracle databases.
Sybase should be pretty familiar with ANTs. In 2008 it licensed components of the company’s ANTs Data Server (ADS) real-time database product (now FourJ’s Genero db), while also entering into a partnership agreement to create a version of ACS that would enable migrations from Microsoft’s SQL Server to Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise and Sybase IQ (451 Group coverage).
That agreement was put on hold when ANTs’ IBM opportunity arose, and while ANTs is likely to have its hands full dealing with IBM migration projects, we would not be surprised to see Sybase reviving its interest in a version that targets Oracle.
It might not reduce the time it takes to port SAP to Sybase – it would take time to create a version of ACS for Oracle-Sybase migrations (DB2 SQL Skin for Sybase was in development and testing for most of 2009) – but it would potentially enable SAP to deploy Sybase databases for new workloads without asking its users to retool and re-train.
May 14th, 2010 — Data management, M&A
The 451 Group has published its take on the proposed acquisition of Sybase by SAP. The full report provides details on the deal, valuation and timing, as well as assessing the rationale and competitive impact in three core areas: data management, mobility, and applications.
As a taster, here’s an excerpt from our view of the deal from a database perspective:
The acquisition of Sybase significantly expands SAP’s interests in database technology, and the improved ability of the vendor to provide customers with an alternative to rival Oracle’s database products is, alongside mobile computing, a significant driver for the deal. Oracle and SAP have long been rivals in the enterprise application space, but Oracle’s dominance in the database market has enabled it to wield significant influence over SAP accounts. For instance, Oracle claims to be the most popular database for deploying SAP, and that two-thirds of all SAP customers run on Oracle Database. Buying a database platform of its own will enable SAP to break any perceived dependence on its rival, although this is very much a long-term play: Sybase’s database business is tiny compared to Oracle, which reported revenue from new licenses for database and middleware products of $1.2bn in the third quarter alone.
The long-term acquisition focus is on the potential for in-memory database technology, which has been a pet project for SAP cofounder and supervisory board chairman Hasso Plattner for some time. As the performance of systems hardware has improved, it is now possible to run more enterprise workloads in memory, rather than on disk. By using in-memory database technology, SAP is aiming to improve the performance of its transactional applications and BI software while also hoping to leapfrog rival Oracle, which has its disk-based database installed base to protect. Sybase also has a disk-based database installed base, but has been actively exploring in-memory database technology, and SAP can arguably afford to be much more aggressive about a long-term in-memory vision since its reliance on that installed base is much less than Sybase’s or Oracle’s.
SAP has already delivered columnar in-memory database technology to market via its Business Warehouse Accelerator (BWA) hardware-based acceleration engine and the SAP BusinessObjects Explorer data-exploration tool. Sybase has also delivered in-memory database technology for its transactional ASE database with the release of version 15.5 earlier this year. By acquiring Sybase, SAP has effectively delivered on Plattner’s vision of in-memory databases for both analytical and transaction processing, albeit with two different products. At this stage, it appears that SAP’s in-memory functionality will quickly be applied to the IQ analytic database while ASE will retain its own in-memory database features. Over time, expect R&D to focus on delivering column-based in-memory database technology for both operational and analytic workloads.
In addition, SAP touted the applicability of its in-memory database technology to Sybase’s complex-event-processing (CEP) technology and Risk Analytics Platform (RAP). Sybase was already planning to replicate the success of RAP in other verticals following its acquisition of CEP vendor Aleri in February, and we would expect SAP to accelerate that.
Meanwhile, SAP intends to continue to support databases from other vendors. In the short term, this will be a necessity since SAP’s application software does not currently run on Sybase’s databases. Technically, this should be easy to overcome, although clearly it will take time, and we would expect SAP to encourage its application and BI customers to move to Sybase ASE and IQ for new deployments in the long term. One of the first SAP products we would expect to see ported to Sybase IQ is the NetWeaver Business Warehouse (BW) model-driven data-warehouse environment. SAP’s own MaxDB is currently the default database for BW, although it enables deployment to Oracle, IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, MaxDB, Teradata and Hewlett-Packard’s Neoview. Expect IQ to be added to that list sooner rather than later, and to potentially replace MaxDB as the default database.
I have some views on how SAP could accelerate the migration of its technology and users to Sybase’s databases but – for reasons that will become apparent – they will have to wait until next week.
Subscribe via RSS