Data warehouse appliances get the thumbs up from users

Its Data Warehouse Appliance report, issued at the end of December 2008, shows them gaining in popularity as the choice of deployment for analytical database technology. According to the study, which was sponsored by data warehouse specialist Kognitio, of more than 200 end-users surveyed, two-thirds felt that a data warehouse appliance is a viable technology, citing their top three features as performance, scalability and reliability. Further, when asked whether commodity hardware was preferred over proprietary hardware as the basis for data warehouse appliances, only 10% of stated proprietary, while 32% went for commodity hardware. John Thompson, CEO of US Operations at Kognitio, says that of all those who had been asked about their experiences of data warehouse appliance adoption, 88% said their data warehouse appliance had met their needs – up from just 11% the year before. “We are pleased to see that an increasing number of organisations value the benefits of data warehouse appliances, and that more people value commodity hardware as the basis for their appliances,” he says. “Kognitio customer, Groupe Aeroplan’s Loyalty Management Group, that was interviewed for the report, is one that has successfully leveraged the scalability, reliability and tailor-made performance of a commodity hardware-based data warehouse appliance to offer their clients a new level of customer analytics and insight.”