M-A-O-L

Now it’s VMware’s turn: Meet Spring Hadoop. MapReduce in Spring, MapReduce in Excel… exciting times!

Microsoft’s Hadoop play is shaping up, and it includes Excel. Curious to see how the marriage of Excel and Hadoop is going to work out.

As expected: HP yokes Autonomy, Vertica together for big data push

Oracle buying WebOS from HP to power Exadata? Well not exactly, but still interesting rumour – what would Oracle do with WebOS?

SQL Server 2008 SP3 is now available!

A few customers requested updates in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 SP3 are:

• Enhanced upgrade experience from previous versions of SQL Server to SQL Server 2008 SP3. In addition, we have increased the performance & reliability of the setup experience.
• In SQL Server Integration Services logs will now show the total number of rows sent in Data Flows.
• Enhanced warning messages when creating the maintenance plan if the Shrink Database option is enabled.
• Resolving database issue with transparent data encryption enabled and making it available even if certificate is dropped.
• Optimized query outcomes when indexed Spatial Data Type column is referenced by DTA Database Tuning Advisor.
• Superior user experience with Sequence Functions e.g Row_Numbers in a Parallel execution plan.

Go get it!

Oracle docs show plans for Hadoop, NoSQL about the Oracle Loader for Hadoop, and Added Session: Big Data Appliance about Oracle’s Big Data Appliance.

A quick aggregation of Cloud Database (or DBaaS) related articles I found in my feed reader…

• Native Cloud Databases – Why Should You Care?
• NuoDB’s Jim Starkey is Creating a Brave New World by Rethinking Databases for the Cloud
• DBaaS vs. DaaS vs. Cloud Storage – What’s the difference?
  
• Postgres Plus® Cloud Server – for a different kind of cloud.

I totally missed it when NimbusDB renamed themselves to NuoDB…

There are a few articles collecting dust in my feed reader from a period a couple months ago when I didn’t have much time staying up to date on what’s happening… here’s the rundown of the most important stuff about Hadoop.

• What Factors Justify the Use of Apache Hadoop?

Hadoop Appliances?

• Hardware for Hadoop
• Why you would want an appliance — and when you wouldn’t
• Some notes on Hadoop (mainly) and appliances
• EMC Puts Database & Hadoop in Same Big Data Analytics Box

Yahoo!’s Hortonworks Hadoop distribution

• Hadoop evolution
• Hortonworks Taking Hadoop to Next Level

Mike Hogan uses the following to suggest a move to NewSQL: Lack of Business Visibility Cripples Traditional SQL DaaS, Drives NewSQL.

the shift to a database as a service (DaaS) severely reduces the DBAs visibility into the business, thus limiting the ability to hand tune the database to the requirements of the application and the database. The solution is a cloud database that eliminates the hand-tuning of the database, thereby enabling the DBA to be equally effective even with limited visibility into the business and application needs

I agree with the problem positioning, but feel strongly that NewSQL is not a requirement to address the problem here, you can equally work a little services layer and put all the control into the hands of the user, essentially replacing (a lot of) the DBA tasks with automation and APIs.

What NewSQL gives you though, and we see that with Xeround and supposedly also ScaleDB, is the elasticity and transparent sharding that’s difficult to achieve with the more traditional Oracle, Sybase or SQL Server databases that are still often required in the enterprise space.

Something not completely technical – but still relevant: Is That Information…And Do I Care?

the discussion of how data and information relate actually continues to knowledge and wisdom as well. We’ve summarized the distinction between these concepts below based on Hey’s paper and Dr. Russell Ackoff work with one of the most common representations of the relationships: the pyramid diagram.

via The Big Data Maslow’s Pyramid.