Hardware Extends SQL Size Boundaries
May 6, 2010
I know. There is the SQL crowd. And there is the NoSQL crowd. Don’t forget the shot gun marriage segment which marries SQL and NoSQL. Where do you think IBM and Oracle fall in this range of options? Part of the answer for IBM appears in “Power7 Blades: The i/DB2 Combo Versus AIX/Oracle”. The idea is simple. Traditional database technology can handle the peta- and exa-scale data management tasks. Well, that’s what the assumption is. The article points out that “In many cases, the premium that IBM is charging i For Business shops for configured Power7 blade servers is reasonable compared to what it costs to configure AIX and an Oracle database on the same identical blades.” The write up explains the pricing for IBM’s newest hardware for database. The assumption is that I would use IBM hardware for data management. The interesting part is that this write up could be edited to apply to Oracle’s latest hardware line up. In short, there is not much difference between these two companies’ approach to data management. The cost for licenses gets really big really fast. Take 64 cores, buy hardware, pay for software licenses, rinse, repeat. Big numbers, fast. The write up is important because it provides performance and cost figures. I downloaded the story and tucked it in my pricing folder.
The challenge to IBM and Oracle is that the cost of SQL solutions is going to hockey stick. What licensees need to ask are such questions as:
- What are the NoSQL or hybrid solutions’ cost? When considering alternatives, what happens to those licensing and cost costs?
- If SQL is assumed to the solution to data management woes, why are NoSQL and hybrid solutions becoming the methods in use at some outfits, ranging from the US government entities to commercial outfits?
- What are the additional costs for maintaining and tuning these hardware/software solutions from IBM and Oracle?
- My view is that SQL is assumed to be the right tool for today’s data management tasks. I am not so sure.
NoSQL specialists like Mark Logic have some interesting approaches. Hybrid outfits like Aster Data have interesting approaches. I find pure SQL solutions both less interesting and more trouble than the high price tags warrant. Just my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, May 6, 2010
No one paid me to write this.
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