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 Business Value of BI
 
 11/16/2006 8:45:47 PM
User is offlinePeterNolan
380 posts
3rd


Business Value of BI

Hi Martin,

I didn't say you could not spend less than USD5M in 5 years on TD HW/SW etc...I said that if you don't have USD5M to spend don't buy TD.

The message was that if the project is not large enough to warrant that kind of spend you can almost certainly achieve what you want on other platforms for a lower price than doing a very similar thing on TD.

TD is great when you really do have very unstructured queries to run on very large volumes of data which do not lend themselves to dimensional or summarized styles of data models......there is a place in the world for TD but it is shrinking as the other vendors scale up and as other newer technologies eat away at the lower end of the DW size....which is getting past 20TB disk reasonably easily now....and not many companies have more than 20TB disk EDWs....

And no...people here can talk about what they want....freedom of speech and all.....

I just have a personal opinion that if more people in the BI or Data Warehousing world thought about business benefit more and feeds and speeds less we might actually deliver more business benefit.. ;-)

The vast majority of EDWs I see deliver no top line revenue at all and barely reduce costs if at all......

In my home country, Australia, we used to only begin sales cycles with prospects who had failed twice yet the business still believed there was value to be had and they were not about to let their 'feeds and speeds'

IT group stuff it up again.....then we could sell some real consulting!

And, sad to say, we had a target rich environment because there were plenty of failures....

Then again...in many ways I am pleased that so many people are so bad at this....makes it easy to 'look good'.. ;-)

Eg...you talk about subject areas and how many systems you brought you're your EDW...I talk about gaining a client 15% gross margin and 5% market share over two years......and I don't care what I did it on and how many systems I got data from....or how much it cost.... ;-)

I care the MD of the company was promoted to CEO of the group for the stellar business performance he was able to turn in year after year after we put in their BI Infrastructure... ;-)

I just find it strange that there is no public debate anywhere about business value of BI.....

Peter

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: martin.willcox via dw-select

[mailto:dw-select@Groups.ITtoolbox.com]

Sent: 14 August 2006 11:23

To: pete...

Subject: RE:[dw-select] RE:Re: RE: Teradata Vs Oracle

 

 

Pete,

To your point: "If you don't have USD5M to spend on hardware and

software over the next

2-3 years don't buy TD."

I was the Warehouse Manager at a major UK grocery retailer for

several years prior to joining Teradata; our Data Warhouse was

built on Teradata. In my time there we (1) bought a Teradata

system, (2) acquired data or had to re-engineer non-Y2K

compliant interfaces (an issue bequeathed to me by my

predecessor, must remember to thank him some time!) from about

10 source systems into 4 subject areas and (3) delivered

half-a-dozen major BI projects (and yes, realized a lot of

business value). We had significant change from USD5M - despite

the fact that we used Teradata Professional Services to do the

majority of our development work, i.e. we bought much more than

hardware and software from Teradata in that period.

To your "wasteful of time point": do we only get to talk about

the things things that are important to you, then, Pete...

:-)

 

MW

---------------Original Message---------------

>Hi All,

>I see discussions like this and I despair of our industry....

>

>In all this discussion nothing about delivering more sustainable

profit

>growth the the organisation....sigh...

>

>

>Anyway, feeds and speeds....Sybase IQ...

>

>I've used it....it is nothing short of amazing....

>

>That Sybase are not selling it like hotcakes is a sad indictment

of our

>industry and how so many people think the only answer to any

database

>question is 'Oracle' having never experienced anything else.

>

>If only a small percentage of people buying EDW databases showed

a small

>modicum of common sense Sybase would have a hit on their

hands....

>alas,

>they don't.

>

>

>I can personally assure and guarantee the following in comparing

IQ and

>Oracle having used both....

>

>

>1. IQ will use 20% of the disk of oracle for the SAME input data

for the

>

>SAME target model.

>

>2. IQ will run between 10 and 100 times faster than the SAME

QUERY on th

>e

>SAME database design as Oracle on the SAME hardware. IQ will

NEVER run

>slower.....

>

>3. Total system cost for hardware and software for similar

performance i

>s

>about 50% when using IQ vs Oracle. That is an 8CPU oracle

system will

>easily be outperformed by a 4 CPU IQ system but probably not by

a 2 CPU IQ

>

>system......

>

>4. If you spend the SAME amount of money on hardware (CPUs

because you o

>nly

>need to buy 20% of the disk) and database license....IQ is

priced

>in parity

>with Oracle on a CPU bases...at least at list price with means

nothi

>ng any

>more....you can reasonably expect performance to be 10-100 times

f

>aster for

>every query you run.

>

>Like I said...at half the price for similar performance and

10-100 t

>imes

>faster for the same money you might wonder how IT people keep

buying Oracl

>e

>as an EDW database....

>

>I don't wonder...it's because people who buy oracle as an EDW

databa

>se seem

>to have extremely limited experience of other database

technologies...

>they

>have an 'Oracle hammer' and all the world is a nail.....sigh..

>.

>

>

>Having said that...of course all databases have their 'features'

and

> IQ has

>it's share...but once you know what you are doing it is

something of

> a joy

>to work with.....

>

>

>Best Regards

>

>

>Peter

>

>

>

>Original Message:

>-----------------

>From: martin.willcox via dw-select

dw-select@Groups.ITtoolbox.com

>Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 08:59:43 GMT

>To: peter@peternolan.com

>Subject: RE:[dw-select] Re: RE: Teradata Vs Oracle

>

>

>

>

>Don't feel too bad. When you're not fighting fires and

managing

>tablespace, you get to hang out with users and design cool new

BI

>applications instead... :-)

>

>

>MW

>---------------Original Message---------------

>>> When working on a replacement of Oracle with Teradata on a

>>>multi-terabyte implementation we were able to cut the 29 hour

daily load

>

>>>to 4 hours,

>>

>>That is impressive!

>>

>>>cut the DBA staff from 5 FTEs to 1,

>>

>>That is depressive!

>>

>>and improved the performance of all queries that were being run

- without

>

>>exception

>>(including the data that remained in a Star Schema).

>>

>>That is too strong. Maybe the ORACLE configuration was

obsolete?

>>

>>Kalman Toth, Database, Data Warehouse & BI Architect

>>URL: http://www.sqlusa.com/doubleheader/ - SQL Server 2005

Best Pra

>ctices

>>

>>----- Original Message -----

>>From: "jeffpankow via dw-select"

<dw-select@Groups.ITtoolbox.com>

>>To: "SQLUSA" <technicalsqlusa@earthlink.net>

>>Sent: Friday, August 11, 2006 11:30 AM

>>Subject: RE: [dw-select] RE: Teradata Vs Oracle

>>

>>

>>>

>>>

>>> Some comments:

>>>

>>> Teradata could not have been designed for Data Warehousing,

because the

>

>>> concept of Data Warehousing grew up after the creation of the

first

>>> Teradata system (oringinally called the DBC or Data Base

Computer).

>>> Teradata was originally designed for and connected only to

mainframe

>>> systems and had a size limit of 1 Terabyte. A great deal has

changed

>in

>>> the RDMBS since its early days, and most of it has been done

to allow

>>> the system to support the Data Warehouse workload.

>>>

>>> Many things have not changed - the base table structure and

basic data

>>> access, the YNET intelligent interconnect concept (now known

as the

>>> BYNET), the ability to change query resource utilization

on-the-fly; al

>l

>>> built upon a RDBMS that pretty much manages itself (often a 3

to 1 or

>>> greater Oracle DBA vs Teradata DBA requirement).

>>>

>>> But many things have changed - the continual evolution of the

optimizer

>,

>>> unique index structures and access strategies to support the

data

>>> warehouse workload (including star schemas), new connectivity

and load

>>> tools to support all popular operating systems. For example,

an new a

>nd

>>> unique on-the-fly hash join consruct has been implemented in

the 6.1

>>> release of Teradata specifically to assist in the

optimization of

>>> StarSchema database queries.

>>>

>>> To your comment: Oracle is clearly the leader over the other

three in

>>> terms of functionality and features relating to data

warehousing. Thi

>s

>>> might be the case, but Oracle falls VERY short when it comes

to

>>> performance. When working on a replacement of Oracle with

Teradata on

> a

>>> multi-terabyte implementation we were able to cut the 29 hour

daily loa

>d

>>> to 4 hours, cut the DBA staff from 5 FTEs to 1, and improved

the

>>> performance of all queries that were being run - without

exception

>>> (including the data that remained in a Star Schema).

>>>

>>> As far as Sybase IQ is concerned, I do not have any

experience with

>>> them, so I cannot speak to their product. The white paper

being

>>> discussed in other threads can be aquired at:

>>>

>>> http://www.teradata.com/t/pdf.aspx?a=83673&b=107616

>>>

>>> FYI - ALL Teradata documentation can be aquired at:

>>>

>>> http://www.info.ncr.com/Teradata/eTeradata-BrowseBy.cfm

>>>

>>> Thanks for your time,

>>> Jeff Pankow

>>>

>>>

>>> -----Original Message-----

>>> From: ngalemm... via dw-select

[mailto:dw-select@groups.ittoolb

>ox.com]

>>> Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2006 1:27 PM

>>> To: Pankow, Jeff

>>> Subject: RE:[dw-select] RE: Teradata Vs Oracle

>>>

>>>

>>> Just some comments... Sybase IQ, Teradata & Oracle are very

diff

>erent

>>> animals. Of the three, the ONLY one designed solely for

BI/Data

>>> Warehousing applications is Sybase IQ.

>>>

>>> Oracle is middle of the road and works well in both BI and

OLTP

>>> applications.

>>>

>>> Teradata was originally intended and sold as a solution for

very high

>>> throughput OLTP applications. That is what its architecture

does be

>st.

>>> However, in the early 90's they pushed it as a data

warehouse engine

>>> because of its ability to handle very large databases (and

because the

>y

>>> could sell more

>>> hardware). The main problem with Teradata is that, because

of

>>> its architecture, the only way you can realize the levels

of

>>> performance it's hardware promises is to implement using a

3NF

>>> relational model. Queries against dimensional models simply

do not

>>> work very well in a MPP shared-nothing hardware

architecure.

>>>

>>> So, it gets down to what kind of data warehouse is being

created.

>>> If it is a dimensional design, do not use Teradata... you

will

>not be

>>> able to make effective use of the hardware. You would be

far better

>

>>> off using Oracle RAC on commodity Linux servers.

>>>

>>> Comparing Oracle and Sybase IQ is another matter. Sybase IQ

is true

>ly

>>> unique. Data is stored as inverted bitmap indexes allowing

for a hi

>gh

>>> degree of data compression and very fast queries. The

downside is t

>hat

>>> loading and updating data is relatively slow because of the

need to

>>> maintain the bitmaps.

>>> But it is not slow enough that it precludes its use in 80%

of data

>>> warehouses.

>>> Oracle is a traditional relational database comparable to

DB2,

>>> SQLServer and Sybase Adaptive Server. However, Oracle is

clearly th

>e

>>> leader over the other three in terms of functionality and

features

>>> relating to data warehousing. Its partitioning and

parallism featur

>es

>>> allow for very large databases with heavy query loads.

Support for

>>> bitmap indexes and star joins provides very good query

performance

>>> against dimensional schemas. They have continually expanded

the

>>> features of its engine to include embedded statistical

capabilities,

>>> XML, market basket analysis and other features.

>>> It may not be as good as IQ in some areas, but overall is a

better

>>> well-rounded choice.

>>>

>>>

>>> ---------------Original Message---------------

>>> >In the past two years I've developed a data warehouse in

Oracle

>>> then one

>>> >in Sybase IQ (which is similar to Teradata in that it is

>>> designed for

>>> >data warehousing). The major differences are that in Sybase

IQ I

>>> didn't

>>> >need to create measure table or a star schema to get the

benefit

>>> of all

>>> >the data. Due to IQ's indexing and storage being different

from

>>> the

>>> >table structure that Oracle demands what took hours in

oracle

>>> took

>>> >seconds in Sybase IQ.

>>> >

>>> >Oracle is designed for inserting, updating and deleting.

Sybase

>>> IQ is

>>> >designed for bulk loading and querying.

>>> >

>>> >The only current difference between Teradata and Sybase IQ

is

>>> the cost.

>>> >

>>> >Good luck.

>>> >

>>> >-----Original Message-----

>>> >From: manjiri.kulkarni via dw-select

>>> >[mailto:dw-select@groups.ittoolbox.com]

>>> >Sent: August 8, 2006 7:47 AM

>>> >To: Petrie, Susan

>>> >Subject: [dw-select] Teradata Vs Oracle

>>> >

>>> >

>>> >

>>> >In our company, we are trying to establish parameters for

short

>>> listing

>>> >Data

>>> >Warehouse platform and trying to evaluate Teradata Vs

Oracle.

>>> Would like

>>> >to

>>> >hear some experiences from people who are already working

on

>>> these

>>> >platforms.

>>> >

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