Oracle and SAP Chase Big Data Rainbow

June 19, 2010

Oracle, SAP Working on Exadata Support” struck me as interesting for three reasons. First, if you are managing one of these super scale storage gizmos, you have some challenges on your hands. Second, Oracle and SAP know that leasers’ of these storage devices have those problems and aim to cash in on the situation. And, third, the outfit that figures out how to make these gizmos work will have bragging rights in the hyper-expensive, enterprise storage market.

High stakes indeed.

Why are big data a problem? Many reasons. The obvious one is that big data take “time” to transform, manipulate, and crunch. The good news is that the problem can be solved by buying more Exadata database machines. Better yet, SAP wants you to buy a Sybase gizmo. The bad news is that adding machines creates more management hassles for the engineers. The less obvious one is that an Exadata gizmo is not one of the slick No SQL solutions that rely on lower cost methods. The good news is that a Fortune 100 company may not trust No SQL or not know much about a No SQL solution. The bad news is that today’s Fortune 100 company could become tomorrow’s employment grave yard. Quiet places, graveyards. The spat between the two companies is not interesting to me. Squabbles that most people don’t understand are good for the azure chip crowd and bloggers. Regular folks, not so much.

The most interesting comment in the write up was:

SAP is now supporting Oracle Database 11g R2, for applications that use SAP kernel 6.40, 7.x and beyond. The companies’ practice has been to delay certifying Oracle’s database releases until the second iteration, a process that minimizes upgrade chores for customers.

This is a service-for-a-fee game. I am not sure the needs of the customer are front and center. The gizmos, the complexity, and the support are the main event.

Stephen E Arnold, June 19, 2010

Freebie

Comments

Comments are closed.

  • Archives

  • Recent Posts

  • Meta