|
Sun's view of the Next Generation of Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence
Member Resources
Get the content you want:
Not a member?
|
With the acquisition of MySQL and investments in other data management leaders, Sun greatly expanded its presence in this increasingly vital market. Here are Sun's views of the burgeoning data warehouse and business intelligence market.
Q: Is the data warehousing and business intelligence market still expanding despite today's economic conditions?
A: We are living in a world where people need to know instantly what's happening. Couple that with the need for organizational leaders to quickly get access to information to make better business decisions, and you have a growing market opportunity. Analysts are saying that business intelligence is one of the fastest growing segments of the data management market. That's because more and more applications and services — particularly customer-facing services — are going online and being accessed via the Web. With this, volume grows exponentially and there is an automatic recording of all kinds of information. Metrics are being collected showing what people click on, where they come from, what they do, etc. So now you have massive amounts of data that you didn't have before. To interpret it, you need dedicated solutions to find the regularities and irregularities in customer behavior to correlate trends.
Q: Gartner has said that improved business intelligence is a number one CIO prerogative. Does Sun agree?
A: Yes. However, cost cutting seems to be foremost on everyone's mind. Companies need to deliver new products and services, while CIOs must make their companies more competitive, so business intelligence and data warehousing are on the agenda. But as we've seen in the last six months, new initiatives must also be low cost, easy to roll out, and free of high upfront investments. Good data and metrics allow you to be more operationally efficient. The primary goal of business intelligence is to optimize resources and investments so that you can adjust your offerings, as close to real time, in reaction to market demands.
Q: What are the key components of a solid data warehousing and business intelligence practice?
A: First, the organization must know what it wants. The ability to collect information and load it into the data warehouse easily is important. There are many systems that produce the data and there aren't many resources to collect it. Next, as you build the data warehouse, things will inevitably change and new requirements will arise. There must be an ability to quickly produce new reports and adapt to new and multiple requests.
Data warehouses will often start small, but the key is to build them so that they can scale and accommodate mixed loads. At Sun, we have the ability to start with hardware and software that is easy to deploy but that allows you to grow without a huge initial investment. When you grow, the solution grows with you.
Data warehousing needs to be as realtime as possible. It's important to ensure that the cycles are quick so that you get results very soon after the data is produced. In traditional solutions, it took days or weeks to get stuff out. Sun can change that.
Data warehousing needs to be as realtime as possible. It's important to ensure that the cycles are quick so that you get results very soon after the data is produced. In traditional solutions, it took days or weeks to get stuff out. Sun can change that.
Q: Why did Sun acquire MySQL?
A: Sun recognized the value of the database engine in its software stack. MySQL has an enormous install base and brand recognition, so through MySQL, Sun got access to customers who might never have considered Sun as a vendor. Additionally, it has to do with open source and the enormous ecosystem of partners and customers that MySQL has.
Q: Why did Sun invest in Greenplum and InfoBright?
A: Strategically, Sun wanted to be an active player in the data management market. With Greenplum, we can go after the largest data warehouses. If the data warehouse is over 30 terabytes, we recommend Greenplum. This also allows Sun to sell our world-class storage solutions for customers with large data warehouse needs.
InfoBright's product is built into MySQL, so every time InfoBright is sold, MySQL is sold, expanding the installed base and market share. This helps us get into market segments we weren't in before.
Typically, the smaller the data warehouse is, the closer it's linked to the operational production system and the larger it is, the more separate. The largest data warehouses in the world are disconnected from the production system they draw their data from. The smaller ones are typically closely-linked to the operational system which means the data warehouse must have the capacity to deal with the variable load requirements because they sit very close to the operational system. Kickfire and InfoBright are building solutions that attach directly to the operational system.
Typically, the smaller the data warehouse is, the closer it's linked to the operational production system and the larger it is, the more separate.
Q: Why might a company want to pursue an open source database strategy?
A: Better performance and scalability, reduced costs, and the architecture of participation. This third factor allows a product to evolve quickly because other products interact with it. In the MySQL ecosystem, Greenplum, InfoBright, Jaspersoft, Kickfire, Pentaho, SnapLogic, Talend, and others, are building data warehousing solutions around the MySQL products. In a closed source organization, there is one roadmap with one person approving it. In the open source world, if innovation is rampant and there are many teams operating independently and openly, the product will evolve more quickly.
Q: Are data warehouses for everyone or just certain vertical markets?
A: They are for everyone. Every commercial company will need data warehousing in some form, but certain entities will need greater capacity. These include online services, telcos, retail, and the financial sector.
Q: What does Sun predict for the future of data management and warehousing?
A: Ten years ago, data warehouses were extremely large and few. Only the biggest, wealthiest organizations could build data warehouses for themselves. Now it's becoming mainstream. Anybody who runs a web service or small business will need data warehousing. Sun predicts that the solutions that are easiest to deploy and manage have the greatest opportunity. There is strong demand among the smaller enterprises for reasonably-sized data warehouses.
| 
