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it_user364464 - PeerSpot reviewer
Member of the Board of Directors at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
It has integration with Linux-based ETL and data streaming technologies. ​It is not designed for transactional systems.

What is most valuable?

  • 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

How has it helped my organization?

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.

What needs improvement?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

Buyer's Guide
IBM Netezza Performance Server
September 2025
Learn what your peers think about IBM Netezza Performance Server. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

The appliance is installed and maintained by vendor.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user365262 - PeerSpot reviewer
Programmer Professional Markets (Manager) at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
​We now have a single store of critical business metrics in the investment bank.

What is most valuable?

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

How has it helped my organization?

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

What needs improvement?

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

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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

How are customer service and technical support?

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.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We were saddled with this.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

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.

What was our ROI?

We have no ROI. We’re a cost center.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

No other options were looked at.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
IBM Netezza Performance Server
September 2025
Learn what your peers think about IBM Netezza Performance Server. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user17130 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager Enterprise Data & Analytics Infrastructure/DBA at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
It works well for many “campaign” queries that run for our clinical analytical area, but while some queries do run very fast, you cannot load up the box with several queries.

Valuable Features

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

Improvements to My Organization

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

Room for Improvement

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

Use of Solution

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

Deployment Issues

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

Scalability Issues

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

Customer Service and Technical Support

It's good.

Initial Setup

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

Implementation Team

We worked with the vendor to implement it.

Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing

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

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Technology Consultant (Netezza/Big Data) at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
The cost-based analysis of query by optimization, it makes query execution faster and provides enough scope to DBA to improve queries.

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used it for six years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

The level of customer service is good.

Technical Support:

The level of technical support is good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've never used any other solutions.

How was the initial setup?

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.

What about the implementation team?

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

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

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.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user357468 - PeerSpot reviewer
Regional Support Specialist at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
It has the capacity to handle terabytes of data with query response times that are very low. Setup is complex.

What is most valuable?

Personally, I like the Compression and Partitioning features.

How has it helped my organization?

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

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

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.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

No issues encountered with deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No issues encountered with stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No issues encountered with scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

They're very good, helpful, and knowledgeable.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

It’s a complex setup.

How was the initial setup?

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

What other advice do I have?

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.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
solution306072 - PeerSpot reviewer
solution306072Business Unit technical Lead at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User

If you are talking about when IBM comes in initially and does the setup I can see your point it is complex. If you are talking about the upgrade of the os and the dbos (database operating system) that can be fairly complex especially when you have HA (high availability) option on your server. There is a lot of things the IBM tech has to go through usually both os upgrade and then the dbos. Typically IBM will do a fail over doing the upgrade. I have watched them (through webex) during these upgrades and there are a lot of things they have to go through.

Database and table setup Netezza is about as easy as they come. There are classes that IBM offers around basic database and server care. Also a class on interpreting explain plans. There are other vendors that offer classes as well on these topics. There is plenty of material on the internet that offers some advice and help on some of these topics. There is a forum available at IBM that is available just search it up on google. The forum will occasionally offer "Enzee" (free) around Netezza and there are tons of blogs available around care and maintenance.

The biggest event that IBM Insight is available and there are many presentations and certification can be done during the conference.

Good luck

it_user351462 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Architect/Modeler with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
It provides outstanding performance for structured data, but bitemporal support is needed.​

What is most valuable?

  1. Performance
  2. Not complex to administer

How has it helped my organization?

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

What needs improvement?

Bitemporal support is needed.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used it for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We found some bugs - boundary conditions mostly.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There are no issues with scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

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

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

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

How was the initial setup?

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

What about the implementation team?

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

What was our ROI?

I can't quantify ROI.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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

What other advice do I have?

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

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Senior Hadoop Engineer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
Top 20
RDBMS appliance scalable upto PetaBytes

What is most valuable?

Its query performance and speed.

How has it helped my organization?

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.

What needs improvement?

  • 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.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used it for four years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No issues encountered.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

Great, 8/10.

Technical Support:

Great, 8/10.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

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.

How was the initial setup?

Straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

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

What was our ROI?

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

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We also looked at Oracle and SQL Server.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user347586 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
Real User
Billions of data are processed within an optimal amount of time, and it supports almost real-time analytics.

What is most valuable?

  • Scalability
  • User friendly
  • Always innovative

How has it helped my organization?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used it for eight years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

No issues encountered.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No issues encountered.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No issues encountered.

How are customer service and technical support?

It's the best.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

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.

How was the initial setup?

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.

What about the implementation team?

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.

What was our ROI?

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

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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

What other advice do I have?

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.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free IBM Netezza Performance Server Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: September 2025
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free IBM Netezza Performance Server Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.