Big IBM i Data Pumped Into Vectorwise
November 13, 2012 Alex Woodie
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HiT Software and Attunity, two vendors that compete in the market for database replication and change data capture (CDC) software, recently unveiled new connectors that feed data from IBM i servers and other sources into Vectorwise, the relational database from Actian (formerly Ingres) that is gaining traction in the market for “big data” analytical tools. Vectorwise is a 64-bit relational database management system for Windows and Linux that was designed specifically to process analytical workloads. The product, which grew out of the MonetDB/X100 research project by the Dutch National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, gains speed benefits through its “vectorized query execution” technology, which is a combination of vector processing and single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) parallelization. Actian claims its technology utilizes 80 percent less hardware to get the same level of performance that other “big data” analysis tools need, with less tuning to boot. In the short two years since Vectorwise has been available as commercial product, it has garnered “big data” buzz for its owner Actian (which changed its name from Ingres in 2011), and claimed top performance marks in TPC-H benchmarks. Today Vectorwise battles with other big data analytic products, such as the in-memory SAP HANA and Oracle Exadata BI appliances, the massively parallel appliances from IBM Netezza, Teradata , and EMC Greenplum, and various other products built on NoSQL databases and Hadoop file systems. Vectorwise, like other specialized analytic systems, sports its own set of ODBC and JDBC connectors to allow customers to suck data in from source systems. However, these connectors aren’t really out-of-the-box solutions, owing to the generic nature of ODBC and JDBC, and the varying nature of database vendor’s compliance with the standard. This opens the door for vendors who specialize in developing high performance connectors, like Attunity and Hit Software (a Back Office Associates subsidiary) to step in and provide the last mile of connectivity back into the source systems. Hit Software unveiled its Vectorwise support in DBMoto version 7.2 on October 24, and Attunity followed a day later with a stand-alone offering called Attunity Replicate for Actian Vectorwise. Support for Vectorwise provides DBMoto customers with critical capabilities, says HiT Software spokeswoman Carolyn Hughes. “Actian can provide results on queries very quickly, and when we add DBMoto to that, we assure them of the most recent and up-to-date information,” she tells IT Jungle. “This is really important for decision-making that takes place on highly transactional data, such as from telcos, retail, and financial services. Last minute updates can make the difference between business failure and success, unfortunately.” The sudden emphasis on big data and the rush to new analytic products that can process big data is helping HiT Software, Hughes says. “We’re seeing requests from our customers for IBM i data to be available to big data, data warehouses, business intelligence, and analytics projects,” she says. Before supporting Vectorwise, HiT announced support for Netezza with DBMoto. Support for other high performance analytics or cloud systems may be next. “Our customers appreciate that we continuously add support for additional databases,” Hughes continues. “This leverages the investment they’ve made in systems in-house, as well as the systems they need to take on for different projects. Of course we support all major the relational databases–all DB2 flavors, including DB2 for i, and Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server, Informix, and Sybase–and a lot of other database.” Attunity Replicate for Actian Vectorwise provides the capability to load data from production databases into Vectorwise using a log-based CDC mechanism. “Attunity Replicate addresses the bottleneck of loading data into big data warehouses like Actian Vectorwise, and our partnership brings a solution to market that provides quick time-to-value,” states Attunity vice president of business development Itamar Ankorion in a press release. The plain vanilla version of Attunity Replicate supports Oracle, SQL Server, DB2 for LUW, DB2 for i, and DB2 for z/OS as data sources, and Oracle and SQL Server databases as targets; it also offers a generic ODBC target. Attunity also sells specialized versions of the product for specific database targets, such as the new Attunity Replicate for Actian Vectorwise offering, and existing offerings for Greenplum, Oracle Exadata, and Teradata. For more information on the two products, visit the companies’ websites at www.hitsoftware.com and www.attunity.com. RELATED STORIES Attunity: Moving Big Data for Dollars HiT Software Takes DBMoto To the Cloud
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