Teradata has made enhancements to the Teradata Database’s hybrid row and column capabilities to provide quicker access to data stored on columnar tables and drive faster query performance.
“This is a technique in the database on how we store and access data,” said Imad Birouty, Teradata's director of technical product marketing. “We’ve broken some boundaries here in allowing customers to do that [in both row and columns].”
Other relational database management systems store data tables in rows or columns, and each method offers benefits, depending on the application and type of data. However, they have been mutually exclusive. Teradata’s new hybrid row and column capabilities allow the best of both worlds.
“The benefit of this is there are no trade-offs,” Birouty said. “It’s all about customer choice and enabling them to design their data warehouse to meet their business needs.”
Teradata’s technical innovations have made it possible to pinpoint single-row data retrieval for fast tactical queries, which reduces unnecessary row scanning. In addition, the “update-in-place” technical capability allows data to be updated within the row, without the need to copy the updated information at the bottom of the table, as is common for columnar databases. These technical enhancements improve query performance and storage efficiency.
The new enhancement will allow data that is stored in a column format to be retrieved without having to scan through large quantities of data, according to Birouty. “We have a technique that can go directly to that one record and find that in a split second,” Birouty said. “That is a unique capability. That is something we’ve had in the Teradata database forever, since day number 1 but we’ve now taken that ability and applied it to columnar. We’re the only ones to do that.” This leads to very fast performance in columnar, Birouty said.
Another capability the enhancement brings is when data is stored in a column format it is now easier to update than before, Birouty explained. “We can update the data in place which is very fast and very efficient,” Birouty said. “At the end of the day [these enhancements] mean that our customers have the choice of row or column and there are no compromises. They get the best of all benefits.”
In addition to the updates to its hybrid row and column capabilities, Teradata is offering REST services which will allow an agile and easy interface to a Teradata database from any device, anytime and anywhere for insights that support data-driven decisions. With a simple and direct web page connection, the services turn a phone, a desktop computer, or a custom handheld device into an information portal from the Teradata Database. In addition,Teradata REST services open up theTeradata Database to a rapidly expanding set of business applications, not previously available.
“In a way it’s bringing the modern world to the Teradata database,” Birouty said. “The common thread between both of these announcements is choice and flexibility for customers. They have choice in the way they design the warehouse and in the way users can access the warehouse. It makes businesses very agile in their ability to change and adapt.”
For more information, visit www.teradata.com.