Actian Corporation

Actian Corporation concluye la adquisición de Versant

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 11:21:46 -0600

Actian Corporation concluye la adquisición de Versant: Actian Corp. (“Actian”), empresa...

Columnar Databases Ingres just published a TPC-H benchmark...

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 11:02:02 -0600

Columnar Databases

Ingres just published a TPC-H benchmark for VectorWise, an analytic database technology employing
1) SIMD processing (Intel SSE 4.2),
2) better memory optimizations to leverage on-chip cache,
3) compression,
4) Column-based storage.

Ingres originated as a research project at UC Berkeley (see Wikipedia) in the 1970s, and has since become a commercially supported, open source database system. Apparently, Ingres project people later founded Sybase. So Ingres in a sense, is the grandfather (or perhap grand-step-uncle?) to SQL Server. According to the Ingres whitepaper, VectorWise spun off from CWI in Amstersdam, with some roots in MonetDB? For the time being, Ingres VectorWise is not open-source. The interesting aspect of VectorWise among other column store database products is use of the SIMD, as in utilizing the special instructions and registers built into recent generation microprocessors. (In a previous blog, I proposed special SIMD instructions to improve the efficiency on accessing pages in traditional row-storage database engines.)

Below are TPC-H results at scale factor 100GB on HP ProLiant DL380 G7 with two Xeon 5680 six-core 3.33GHz processors for SQL Server 2008 R2 and Ingres VectorWise 1.5.

PowerThroughputQphHSQL Server99,626.355,038.273,974.6VectorWise257,142.9246,101.7251,561.7

Overall, the VectorWise columnar database has about 2.5X higher score on Power, and 5X on Throughput. The glaring weak point of SQL Server is that the throughput is (almost 2X) lower than the power. The SQL Server parallel execution engine is very powerful running a single stream with no other concurrent queries competing for CPU. It does not have a good strategy for sharing compute resources with other concurrent long running queries.

The general expectation set by all the new technology, columnar storage, memory optimization and vector processing was 10X, not 3X. However, we should consider that the TPC-H benchmark score is a composite geometric mean of 22 individual queries. The individual query performance differences between SQL Server and VectorWise are shown below, on a logarithmic scale (base 2, not 10, a cool feature in Excel 2007?).

Gartner Business Intelligence & Analytics Summit

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 10:01:01 -0600

Gartner Business Intelligence & Analytics Summit: SOLUTION SHOWCASE Learn, analyze, compare and...

主流列式数据库评测Ingres VectorWise

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 08:51:21 -0600

主流列式数据库评测Ingres VectorWise: 　【IT168 专稿】在上一系列文章中，我们先后介绍了Gbase 8a,Infobright,InfiniDB,...

contact vectorwise research publications talks varia Contact To...

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 08:45:56 -0600

contact vectorwise research publications talks varia

Contact

To contact me, please write to marcin at vectorwise dot com.

VectorWise

In 2008 the MonetDB/X100 project described further on this page has been converted into VectorWise, a company which I currently manage.

VectorWise cooperates with Ingres, the leading open-source database company, on the Ingres VectorWise product.

Research

Between 2001 and 2008 I was a member of the MonetDB development team. My initial work with MonetDB concentrated on parallel query execution, which resulted in my master’s thesis (pdf).

From 2003 I was working on the MonetDB/X100 project under the supervision of Peter Boncz and Martin Kersten.

This project resulted in my PhD thesis and was a base for the VectorWise company

[Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Driver's SQLSetConnectAttr failed (0)

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 14:12:03 -0600

[Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Driver's SQLSetConnectAttr failed (0): Getting following error in...

Five Non-obvious Tips for iPhone Novices If you find that you’re...

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:46:54 -0600

Five Non-obvious Tips for iPhone Novices

If you find that you’re repeatedly missing photo opportunities because it takes you too long to tap in your passcode and find the camera app, you’ll be happy to learn that you can by-pass that hassle. Simply slide the camera icon, next to the unlock slider, up the screen and it will automatically invoke the camera. The really nice thing about this is that it’s secure and locks out access to any other content on your phone including access to your photo library.

OpenRoad Webinar http://www.actian.com/ Durwin Wright and Ken...

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 14:54:00 -0600

OpenRoad Webinar

http://www.actian.com/

Durwin Wright and Ken Linder explore the UFT8 and Unicode features of OpenRoad 6.0. They will demonstrate Multi-lingual application development. Simplicity of OpenRoad compared to Java or C#.

A Time to Count the Bounties of Big Data As the Thanksgiving...

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 12:51:26 -0600

A Time to Count the Bounties of Big Data

As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, we here in the US often take the time to come together, reflect on the year that was and count our good fortunes. Of course, the long Thanksgiving weekend – including Thanksgiving Thursday, Black Friday and Cyber Monday – is one of the busiest shopping events of the year. As big data analytics become even more important to retailers in the US and internationally, we at Actian decided to look at some of the statistics surrounding the unofficial kickoff to holiday shopping season.

The US Department of Agriculture calculates that 254 million turkeys were raised in the US in 2012 – up 2 percent from the year prior. Six US “turkey states” account for nearly two-thirds of all gobblers sold – with Minnesota ahead of the flock with 46 million turkeys produced.

futuramb: Mannequins are spying on shoppers for market...

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 08:14:21 -0600

futuramb:

Mannequins are spying on shoppers for market analysis (Wired UK)
By Liat Clark, wired.co.uk

Technology

Mannequins fitted with facial recognition software are tracking the age, sex and race of retail customers so that companies can rebrand and market their stores accordingly.

The €4,000 (£3,236) EyeSee mannequins, made b…

And I thought they were creepy already…

PBS Software announces PBS Nearline Storage solution with Actian...

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 16:46:20 -0600

PBS Software announces PBS Nearline Storage solution with Actian Vectorwise

PBS Software GmbH and Actian Corporation today announced their newly formed agreement to bring the power of Actian’s record-breaking analytic database, Vectorwise, to PBS nearline storage solutions.

A pioneer in using column-based database technology to enable Information Lifecycle Management in SAP environments, PBS Software offers nearline storage solutions for SAP Business Warehouse (BW) and ERP installations. PBS solutions help SAP users to process large and complex data volumes by compressing and storing lesser-used data sets in column-based database architectures in order to free up SAP applications considerably. Thanks to column-based database technology, users have fast access to nearline stored data in order to conduct adhoc analyses. Working with Actian, PBS nearline storage solutions are now also available by using Actian Vectorwise as the column-based database server.

Actian and Numsight Sign Strategic Partnership Agreement marks...

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 10:03:36 -0600

Actian and Numsight Sign Strategic Partnership

Agreement marks the launch of bundled solution for analysing large databases at a lower cost

Actian Corporation has signed a partnership agreement with Numsight, a French computer software and systems consultancy which provides hosted marketing database solutions to support data analytics in the retail sector. Covering technology solutions and marketing efforts, the agreement marks both companies’ commitment to provide customers with data analytics at the speed of thought.

EnvoiMoinsCher.com Boosts Customer Satisfaction and Service...

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 09:59:53 -0600

EnvoiMoinsCher.com Boosts Customer Satisfaction and Service Delivery with Actian Vectorwise

rance’s first online shipping comparison site uses record-breaking analytic database

Boxtale, the firm behind the EnvoiMoinsCher.com website, is using the high-performance analytic database Actian Vectorwise to accelerate complex analytic query response times. Visitors to the online shipping price comparison website now benefit from a dramatically-improved user experience when searching for the best delivery prices from a selection of more than twenty shipping providers and when placing their order.

Actian Vectorwise has made rapid inroads in enabling savvy data-centric organizations such as EnvoiMoinsCher. com to successfully monetize the growing data volumes by providing real time analysis necessary for their business.

UK government backs open source

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 09:40:18 -0600

UK government backs open source: he UK government has said it will accelerate the use of open source...

Ingres Database ( /ɪŋˈɡrɛs/ ing-gress) is a commercially...

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 09:25:02 -0600

Ingres Database ( /ɪŋˈɡrɛs/ ing-gress) is a commercially supported, open-source SQL relational database management systemintended to support large commercial and government applications. Ingres Database is fully open source with a growing^{[citation needed]}global community of contributors. However, Actian Corporation controls the development of Ingres and makes certified binaries available for download, as well as providing worldwide support.

Ingres was first created as a research project at the University of California, Berkeley, starting in the early 1970s and ending in the early 1980s. The original code, like that from other projects at Berkeley, was available at minimal cost under a version of the BSD license. Since the mid-1980s, Ingres has spawned a number of commercial database applications, including Sybase, Microsoft SQL Server,NonStop SQL and a number of others. Postgres (Post Ingres), a project which started in the mid-1980s, later evolved into PostgreSQL.

Ingres is ACID and is fully transactional (including all DDL statements).

oatmeal: How inspiration works. Read the rest of the comic...

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 10:36:54 -0600

oatmeal:

How inspiration works.

Read the rest of the comic here: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/making_things

Actian Vectorwise Speeds Up the Large Data Warehouse And Creates...

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 10:35:21 -0600

Actian Vectorwise Speeds Up the Large Data Warehouse And Creates Opportunity For Big Data Business Innovation

Vectorwise is an analytic engine that’s strong enough to...

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 10:27:56 -0600

Vectorwise is an analytic engine that’s strong enough to handle today’s information overload, can power through miles of data in seconds, and deliver instant insight to business users when and where they need it.

Analysez vos gros volumes de données – votre « Big Data » – et accélerez votre décisionnel à l’aide du logiciel d’essai gratuit de Vectorwise, la base de données la plus rapide et la plus abordable au monde !

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 11:46:55 -0600

Analysez vos gros volumes de données – votre « Big Data » – et accélerez votre décisionnel à...

o buy or not to buy: in-memory analytics, but at what cost?

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 10:49:38 -0600

o buy or not to buy: in-memory analytics, but at what cost?: Recently, Gartner revised down its...