IBM Netezza Performance Server Reviews

Netezza partitions all database objects across all available SPU’s. With traditional RDBMS systems, partitioning database objects requires a lot of planning and configuration. Netezza, only requires to develop a partitioning scheme. This eliminates several steps in the process, vastly simplifies performance tuning leading to very high performance.

As the system is preconfigured, the site level configuration required is minimal. Eliminates the need for a separate SAN.

Reduces system administration and database administration effort. Simplifies performance tuning effort. The net effect is reduced load on DBA team and quicker turnaround.

Application development in Netezza is done using SQL scripts and stored procedures. GUI based ETL tools provides higher level of visibility and higher productivity. I hope to see a GUI based application development environment. This could also be achieved through tight integration with an ETL tool, like IBM’s own ETL tool DataStage.

We've used it for five years.

Netezza was one of the components in our application. This component had the least number of issues

Netezza was one of the components in our application. This component had the least number of issues

Netezza was one of the components in our application. This component had the least number of issues

Good. We had Netezza experts assigned to the client site and had easy access to them.

1. Compared to other RDBMS, Netezza provides much higher performance and much lower maintenance effort
2. Compared to Teradata, lower cost and lower administration

Initial set-up of the system is quite simple. Eliminates several steps required in a custom built platform, like storage system configuration, planning database storage.

I was a consultant from the system implementation vendor.

1. Netezza is well suited for data warehousing and analytics, not for OLTP application
2. The key approach is to develop an uniform data distribution scheme and collocation of data partitions across related database objects. For example, if we have a large customer dimension and a large sales by customer fact, these tables will be joined very frequently. To get the best performance, both tables should be distributed on the same key, e.g. customer_id.

• Lots of space
• Implicit compression
• High Availability with multiple redundancy

The performance has meant that we reclaimed many hours in our batch window. The ease of which we ported data onto it, the fact that it does not take a lot of administration and the overall manageability of the box have improved our company.

Ability to use constraints to enforce uniqueness would be an improvement.

We got our first Netezza box in 2004 and the Pure Data in 2014 following the acquisition by IBM.

A blade failure at the commissioning stage, but the box (and predecessors) have been extremely stable and provides us with lots of scalability.

Very good for this product. It was excellent when it was Netezza and that support seems to have continued with IBM.

Previously used DB2 LUW but this could not provide us with the performance we needed at the time. We looked at Netezza as they were trying to get a foothold in the UK and the portability of data and the speed with which it performed was incredible.

Very straightforward for Pure Data but the initial set-up was affected by the fact that we seemed to get a junior technician from IBM who was not as good as other engineers we have had.

Build a strong relationship with your technical account manager as you will be referring to them quite a lot. Could save many man hours in the long term.

I can't comment on the figures but needless to say it has been a resounding success for us.

IBM support is very good for this product. It has very few issues and it does exactly what it says on the tin. Check for the functional limitations of the logical database e.g there are no such thing as indexes/primary key constraints where you might want to force uniqueness.

• Ease of use
• Lack of performance problems for analytics and massive data systems
• Integration with Linux-based ETL and data streaming technologies
• Integration with distributed computing platforms

It has been the primary driving technology behind the corporate wide transition to Netezza as a standard data platform. A whole ecosystem is beginning to develop around the product.

It is not designed for transactional systems. Transactional systems that require frequent updates, deletes, etc should use a different solution.

Netezza does not perform well with a significant volume of individual record operations. Netezza is designed specifically for set based operations.

Netezza does not perform well with a significant volume of individual record operations. Netezza is designed specifically for set based operations.

The appliance is installed and maintained by vendor.

• Distributed querying
• Seamless concurrency
• Fast loading
• High velocity analytics

We now have a single store of critical business metrics in the investment bank.

The query optimization is crap, and the machine could use more alerting around bad design and bad queries.

I've been using it for four and a half years.

Releases from IBM are poorly tested, but once they work once, they’re stable – i.e., the machine only goes down immediately after an upgrade.

Scalability is fixed. It’s big, but not at all scalable.

Moderate. IBM is really good at communicating to us that they take our problems seriously, but they don’t seem to fix them very quickly.

We were saddled with this.

The setup was straightforward.

We implemented it in house. My advice would be to follow the tool, and not try to force a schema designed for another system on it.

We have no ROI. We’re a cost center.

No other options were looked at.

It can run heavy CPU queries really fast, and this is valuable.

We have a lot of “campaign” queries that run for our clinical analytical area and this product seems to work well for them.

While some queries do run very fast, you cannot load up the box with several queries.

We've used TwinFin for over four years and Striper for around one-and-a-half.

It does not scale like other databases and expect them to run at the same time.

Netezza does not scale like other databases, so it cannot run several queries at once.

It's good.

It was pretty straightforward, but we had to get several areas involved in initial setup.

We worked with the vendor to implement it.

It is a pretty expensive solution, but it is worth it for the right environment.

With a field-programmable gate array, it has the capabilities to do arithmetic calculations at memory level. Also, the cost-based analysis of query by optimization, it makes query execution faster and provides enough scope to DBA to improve queries.

In my opinion the product is the best for the purpose it has been built.

I've used it for six years.

Not much, IBM guys are quite professional and ready to help with every bit and piece.

Not much, IBM guys are quite professional and ready to help with every bit and piece.

Not much, IBM guys are quite professional and ready to help with every bit and piece.

The level of customer service is good.

The level of technical support is good.

I've never used any other solutions.

Initial setup is pretty straightforward, as IBM provides ramp-up training through in-house training and assigns a technical account manager to make faster resolution of queries.

Both ways, as the box got setup by us and IBM provided a huge set of documents, which made life easier.

Before buying the physical product from IBM, there is an option to use the solution in the cloud to perform a POC and get your stats ready with actual data for better analysis of your investment.

Personally, I like the Compression and Partitioning features.

It has the capacity to handle terabytes of data with query response times that are very low. This has helped us a lot.

It’s a good product for analytical processing, but they need to conduct more seminars and hands-on training and events. They need to be showcasing the product and features to create awareness among businesses.

I have been working on it for the last two-and-a-half years and now we are in process of a tech refresh. We’re moving from the old Netezza to the newer IBM Pure Data Analytics, using a quarter of the rack for Pure Data.

No issues encountered with deployment.

No issues encountered with stability.

No issues encountered with scalability.

They're very good, helpful, and knowledgeable.

It’s a complex setup.

It was handled by the vendor as it's proprietary.

It's fit for the purpose it's designed for. It's an analytical/hierarchical database, now in great demand, that can store plenty of data and return the results in no time for complex queries.

1. Performance
2. Not complex to administer

It provides a key repository for risk information - suitable due to volume of data.

Bitemporal support is needed.

I've used it for three years.

We found some bugs - boundary conditions mostly.

There are no issues with scalability.

9/10 - I have always be able to reach someone at IBM with the correct answer.

Non analytic databases used to be all there was. Netezza provides outstanding performance for structured data.

I didn't set up but our database administrators have said it is much simpler than Oracle, or DB2.In house - have a person trained on PureData - it will pay off

In house - have a person trained on Pure Data - it will pay off

I can't quantify ROI.

Licensing is straightforward - you end up buying the box with Netezza on it as it's an appliance.

Every query has to be set based - no iteration over a result set. stored procedures should be used sparingly.

Its query performance and speed.

Earlier there was high latency to query extraction but Netezza has improved the speed for all OLAP operations. This has helped the organization to get the business answers right on time.

• Matching up with big data.
• Netezza has been built only for OLAP and structured data, and I think IBM must do something to match it to Hadoop scalability.

I've used it for four years.

There’s only been one, where data slices were corrupted soon after the deployment but IBM has fixed it in a perfect manner.

No issues encountered.

We didn’t have many scalability issues, except when it touches the PB storage data and we need to move it to external storage. Netezzas’ highest model storage capacity is 1.2 PB.

Great, 8/10.

Great, 8/10.

We have previously used Microsoft SQL server, but we switched because our business wants fast and reliable appliance like Netezza. Although MS SQL server is reliable but Netezza is known for it's MPP and performance when compared to other RDBMS appliances.

Straightforward.

An IBM team deployed it for us, and they were 9/10.

Business questions are answered much quicker than what we use to do it earlier.

The Netezza appliance is bit costly for a mid-sized organization but highly effective on the performance side and for structured data.

We also looked at Oracle and SQL Server.

I don’t want to be biased but it all depends on the business requirement because there are many models for it, which range from 7.8 TB to 1.2 PB (uncompressed). If the business has done a feasibility check on Netezza for their scalability plus the growth and they found it to be within their estimates then I would suggest that they have taken off from the right runway.

• Scalability
• User friendly
• Always innovative

Billions of data are processed within an optimal amount of time, and it supports almost real-time analytics. This helps the executives to define their strategy for further expansion and identify potential opportunities with informed decisions.

It has already integrated with Big Data Hadoop; however, integration with XML is still not there for nzload utility.If nzlad supports XML files along with flat flies ,it will give them an edge over other MPP Architecture.

I've used it for eight years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

It's the best.

We used other MPP architecture solutions such as Microsoft PDW and Teradata. However, Netezza has an edge as it is convenient to use and it doesn't need a database administrator to perform a successful implementation of a Netezza migration from any RDBMS.

The initial setup is straightforward as it is an appliance. IBM's technical support team takes care of the entire setup process, and you don't need an expert in Netezza to perform the implementation.

We did it in-collaboration with IBM, and in my opinion, this is the best way to embrace new technology. Once you gradually build up your capability in new technology, you should then take control of it with your in-house talented experts.

We had a significant ROI as business increased multi-fold with such a scalable solution.

Compared to other MPP's, Netezza's pricing is quite reasonable considering long term business expansion with low maintenance cost.

Any potential customer who has an inclination towards large scale analytics, should consider Netezza as an option. This not only gives a faster response, but you can also save on resource cost compared to other MPP's. Netezza's maintenance cost is quite low and this will give you an edge for long term revenue growth.