SAP IQ Reviews

It is very robust for ad hoc DW queries and its columnar compression is unique and valuable.

My organization was using different RDBMs for data warehouse systems. There were obvious problems in terms of performance. Sybase IQ resolved all the performance problems we had at that time.

They should improve the backup options. There is no backup software support for Sybase IQ. You have to implement your own backup system. For large databases, you need to use disk backup solutions and it is very expensive.

Multiplex is very problematic. There are consistency problems in the metadata, meaning it is possible to lose metadata consistency. You should make sure you have healthy backups.

It is very hard to find which sessions cause a performance problem. It also has no resource manager to manage resources between consumers.

Over 15 years.

Early versions crashed frequently. Crashes (IQ freezes for no apparent reason and you have to restart it to resolve it) with the latest versions are rare.

Multiplex has some limitations and bugs. Although implementing MPX is easy, I cannot say it results in the expected scalability.

Six out of 10.

We used a different solution and then we switched to Sybase IQ. Now, because we are having some difficulties in terms of scalability, stability and performance, our DW system is being switched to a new solution again.

Both simplex and multiplex installation are very straightforward.

Negotiation is very important.

Data, and getting insight from data, is very important when it comes to competing with your competitors. You have to be fast and agile, in terms of implementing a system and development, in order to get that data insight.

Valuable features for us include the compression, speed, fast response time, and easy object maintenance.

It has provided us with cube query and faster data upload time.

I think the universe should be part of the Sybase IQ tool set.

We have been using the solution for about 10 years.

Sybase IQ is very stable. However, during earlier stages when the server crashes, you need Sybase technical support to help you out.

We did not encounter any issues with scalability.

The experts on Sybase IQ were very few in number, but they were really knowledgeable.

I guess it is the price competition offered by other vendors that causes companies to migrate to other data warehouse databases.

This is one of the simplest tools to install and it is very easy to scale.

Negotiate based on the features required.

I was not involved with product evaluation. However, this was the tool I normally would recommend for Sybase archive solutions.

Evaluate, carry out benchmarks, and do an ROI before buying.

• Compression
• Column-based, indexes
• Speed with large queries
• Large amounts of data

While queries with previous products could run for hours, with SAP IQ, they run in a matter of minutes or seconds. Disk costs.

There could be more documentation and training.

In earlier versions, yes, but not in the past two-three versions.

None, scales to VLDB status.

An eight out of 10.

OLTP databases, but there's no comparison in terms of reporting and warehousing.

Straightforward, very easy.

Know what you are getting for your money.

No, I did not evaluate other options before choosing this product.

Do the research. This is an excellent product.

Columnar storage allows high compression, high load rates and high query performance.

Allows creation of highly functional DW.

Concurrency and functional error messaging.

6 years.

No.

No.

Average.

No.

It is straightforward, but the documentation is confusing at times.

Evaluate all options; check to see if you need expensive add-ons.

Yes, Teradata and Oracle.

Make sure you can back it up, load data from local host, and do real load tests.

The speed of the tool - both of the query response and the loading of data.

It’s the central component of our enterprise data warehouse. Queries and reports that would require hours or days from the original source systems are now available in minutes or seconds. It’s really fast!

The stability needs improvement. We’ve upgraded through multiple minor revisions because of issues where the database server would crash when attempting to answer a perfectly legal SQL query.

We're

I've been using it for five years.

The client side of the package is a bit monolithic. We'd like to be able to roll out just the ODBC driver to client workstations through our managed desktop solution, but SAP/Sybase apparently doesn't have that capability, so we have to manually visit every workstation and install the complete client package from the DVD image.

Just the stability issues referenced above. A production database server should never crash in response to user input, but Sybase IQ has repeatedly done that for us, over multiple revisions of the product.

Not yet. We haven’t had a need to expand our Sybase IQ system yet, but their multiplex architecture seems like a useful approach if/when we need to do so.

We have to go through our systems integrator (Telus).

Technical support is not good, although we actually have to go through our systems integrator (Telus), not directly to SAP/Sybase. However, the feedback from our systems integrator (Telus), is that the technical support is not great. Their first level help desk at SAP/Sybase is generally of no value for the problems we encounter, and the process of escalation to the appropriate level takes longer than it should.

This was our first solution for our enterprise data warehouse project.

The initial setup was complex, because Sybase IQ is architecturally very different from Sybase ASE, which we’ve been using for over 20 years. They share the “Sybase” name, but otherwise are very different products, requiring a different approach to database administration and tuning.

We used our vendor team, whose expertise was acceptable, but not outstanding.

We haven't calculated it.

Caveat emptor. It’s a frustratingly excellent product. When it works, the performance is amazing, but the stability issues, and the expense of the product, coupled with less than top tier technical support, should be considered when evaluating the product for your specific environment.

• Data compression ratio
• Mass query speed

Sybase IQ, it's high compressed ratio and large query are attractive. In data warehouse experience that is a good tool and normal C/P.

We can now have over one billion rows in a table for semi-real trans-national querying. In quarterly or monthly report from billions of records, it supports and provides, stable performance.

• Admin UI
• Tuning parameters
• Maintenance tool
• UI

I've used it for over five years.

There weren't many issues.

Aborts happen, and we don't know why.

There aren't many issues.

5/10.

5/10.

We also have an Oracle solution, and these it runs in parallel with Sybase IQ.

We set it up in multi node mode, and it wasn't too complex.

We implemented with a vendor who were 6/10.

It's at about 60%.

They should simplify the classification of licenses, especially the core/store number.

• Oracle
• PostgreSQL

Take into consideration your multiplex environment and storage IOPS balance.

Sybase IQ is the only data warehousing (DWH) solution we use for reporting.

I've used it for eight years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

7/10.

6/10 because at the time I was using it, Sybase Turkey were short on staff and not very experienced.

The product is very good as a DWH & Reporting tool. It is performing well on large tables for DML operations and queries.

Sybase IQ is a column based database, used for business intelligence, data warehousing, and data marts. It is optimized for BI/Analytics and ad-hoc queries. Since it is column based it uses optimal storage space and very high performance.

Very few people are familiar with this technology, as training programs are very expensive.

I've used this product for almost five years.

The deployment is a bit complex compared to other databases.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

It's good.

I switched because of its column-based architecture and optimal storage.

It has two types of setup, Simplex, and Multiplex. Simplex is straightforward, while Multiplex is a bit complex. but once you get to grips with it, that's straightforward too.

It's worth investing in.

Good luck with it, putting in hard work will give you good returns.

• Ability to load data from flat files very quickly
• Data compression
• Fast querying for aggregations

IQ has enabled our company to load data from our data vendors in under one hour and eliminated multiple copies and hours of processing time.

DR capabilities need to be improved. For instance, unlike SAP ASE, there is no ability to replicate from IQ to IQ.

I've used it for 10 years.

No issues were experienced during deployment, however, we hit performance issues on Solaris which were eliminated when we migrated to the Linux platform.

With various patches of v15.4 and v16.0, we had instances where the IQ server crashed under certain circumstances. The vendor has addressed most of the issues though.

None product-related and we were able to get around by tuning. Though as we add more data and more users we may have to consider IQ multiplex in the future.

7/10.

9/10.

We used ASE to store the data in IQ. We switched as IQ now allows us to centrally store the data in one place and in a compressed format.

It's straightforward; IQ is one of the easiest DBMS to install.

For our initial IQ server we had Sybase consultants, and we used them again for our migration to Linux. Their expertise was 7/10.

Hardware cost was the biggest savings, in the tens of thousands of dollars.

No, as since we had Sybase ASE we took their IQ product without evaluating any other options.

IQ is a niche product and is good for data storage with it's massive compression ability and adhoc querying. With the emergence of in-memory databases and MPP platforms (like Cassandra, HANA, Greenplum,etc.). I see IQ being used as more of a data store than interacting with the end users or apps if shops chose to use these new technologies.

• Performance
• Scalability
• Ease of deployment
• Usability
• Administration

In the organizations I have worked with, SAP Sybase IQ has been used successfully as a datawarehouse solution and as data store for ad hoc querying. It delivers performance and enormous scalability.

Training and marketing are two areas where improvements are needed.

I've used it for eight years.

SAP Sybase IQ is a product which can be deployed very easily on commodity hardware.

Not really. In normal functioning SAP Sybase IQ is extremely stable.

No. I have seen deployments of datawarehouses with tens of TB's in used space and they scaled very easily to multiple applications.

It has been good, but more can be done in this area.

It's good, 7/10.

It's straightforward in the hands of a junior level DBA. The installer is very easy to understand as long as the user has a understanding of architecture and layout of the database server.

It's been in-house.

Understand your requirements well in terms of performance, backup, and space requirements before picking the number of licenses. If IQ is being used in a virtual environment then probably a good understanding of licensing options in a virtual environment is needed. Recently SAP has introduced some new license options, but new users should review those options with the sales team.

Estimate the storage requirements, performance requirements, and the number of users during the planning phase. Review the documentation related to hardware sizing and best practices available on the SAP website. There is a hardware estimation guide too which helps in estimating the hardware requirements. Lastly, review the multiplexing option too and understand the implication of columnar storage in a database server.