New to the list - InfoBright & Aster Data

I’ve added two new (to me) database appliance vendors this past week, InfoBright and Aster Data.  The revised vendor matrix is attached.

I spoke with InfoBright CEO Miriam Tuerk about their product, and my initial reaction was that this was just another run of the mill column oriented database built on an open source platform.  After the discussion three key differentiators stood out:

1. InfoBright is a true open source product - their Infobright Community Edition (ICE) contains 90% of the product functionality and is provided as a free download
2. MySQL extension - turns the ubiquitous open source database into a high powered data warehouse engine 
3. “Knowledge Grid” - this component of their architecture is unique in this space and gives Infobright a huge competitive advantage in scalability, performance, and maintainability

Their business model is structured to mirror that of MySQL, with a revenue stream tied to support, training, and some consulting.  But the secret sauce is the combination of open source availability with innovations in the architecture.  The Knowledge Grid, combined with their Data Pack storage method, provide linear scalability, massive compression, and query acceleration.  Miriam provided several case studies that showed both rapid deployment (under 24 hours in one case) and extreme compression (over 30x).  Under the covers its a column store database built on Red Hat Linux.  They currently run on an Intel or AMD platform, but are planning a Windows and Solaris version this calendar year.  I’m looking forward to continuing discussions with Miriam this week, and may co-author an article with her.

I also spoke with Steve Wooledge from Aster Data this week.  He gave me an overview of their nCluster database.  Built on top of the Postgress database, this MPP platform offers extreme scalability through a clustered architecture.  MySpace uses nCluster to collect large amounts of information every hour for analytics purposes, requiring only 1/2 a resource to maintain the system - testament to their claim of “hands-off” system management.  They also run on standard Intel x86 machines, and have recently launched a “green” initiative whereby they give customers credits for each piece of existing hardware they reuse.  They have also launched a cloud version of their software, nCluster Cloud Edition, that runs on Amazon Web Services.  The only concern I have is Steve didn’t have a good answer to the question around long-term management of hot-spots in the MPP environment, although the MySpace example seems to show they have a solution in place.

This entry was posted on 19. February 2009 at 00:23 and is filed under Vendors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.