Over the past year, we have seen a number of new entrants in the data warehouse appliance market. What user requirements are driving the launch of these new appliance solutions and are appliances a niche solution, or is this the beginning of a broader-based trend?
 
In the current issue of Database Trends and Applications magazine, industry leaders from a range of companies-including Oracle, as well as Sybase, Teradata, Dataupia, Microsoft, Netezza, ParAccel and Sun Microsystems-weigh in on this topic.

"Data warehouses have to manage more and more information each day while business users continue to expect consistently fast query response times. Getting the right balance of server, storage, networking, and intelligent software to deliver on these expectations can be a challenge," observes Ray Roccaforte, vice president, Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence Platform, Oracle.

"Exponential business demand for more information in a timely manner sometimes requires an alternative approach," he points out. "However, it's important that potential solutions do not compromise the scalability, reliability, security and support for mixed workloads, analytics and data mining that are crucial to the success of any data warehouse. Many of the so-called appliances in use today are ‘one trick ponies'; orphans of the data center with proprietary software and hardware that require separate, costly skills to properly manage."

To stay on top of all the trends, subscribe to DBTA magazine. To read the article right now in the DBTA e-edition, go here.