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Mediha Šiljić - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Data Engineer at Sensilab
Real User
Easy to set up and easy to connect the many tools that connect to it
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features are that it's easy to set up and easy to connect the many tools that connect to it."
  • "Compatibility with other products, for example, Microsoft and Google, is a bit difficult because each one of them wants to be isolated with their solutions."

What is our primary use case?

We are using the private cloud model of this solution. Our primary use case is for a data warehouse for BI.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are that it's easy to set up and easy to connect the many tools that connect to it.

What needs improvement?

Compatibility with other products, for example, Microsoft and Google, is a bit difficult because each one of them wants to be isolated with their solutions. That's a big problem now.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Redshift for around eight to nine months.
Buyer's Guide
Amazon Redshift
November 2024
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is okay. It's easily scalable. We don't have any plans to increase usage at the moment. We currently have two users directly using this solution. Indirectly we have around 50 users.

We require two staff members for maintenance and others are just consuming data from it.

How are customer service and support?

There hasn't been a need to contact technical support at this point. We haven't had any technical issues. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward. The deployment took a few hours. 

What about the implementation team?

We integrated it ourselves. 

What was our ROI?

We have seen ROI. It's been useful.

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

It's around $200 US dollars. There are some data transfer costs but it's minimal, around $20.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate it a ten out of ten. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Chief Executive Officer at Ampcome
Real User
Scales according to our needs, which saves a lot in terms of upfront costs
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the scalability, as it grows according to our needs."
  • "The OLAP slide and dice features need to be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We are a digital transformation services company, and we are using Amazon Redshift for one of our clients. They are a logistics company that has transportation and other needs.

Their first requirement is for financial reporting, where we pull financial data from their many ERP systems and can provide a corporate-level view.

There is also an operations standpoint, where they are looking for operational insights. For this, we again pull different information from their ERPs, bring it into Redshift, and then model it in such a way that they will be able to see a consolidated view in terms of operational success across lines of business.

How has it helped my organization?

I've been working with data warehouses for a long time and it has always been the case that we had to invest quite a bit on infrastructure, upfront. We are used to dealing with Teradata, and the cost of setting up the data center and getting the appropriate licenses was a big deal. Now, we are able to spin up some clusters and then start using it, allowing us to incrementally pay as we expand.

This has become a big shift in how we spend because there is no capital cost upfront. Moreover, this works with startups as well as with enterprise, and they provide an equal footing. This means that even the advanced capabilities and insights that are available with a data warehouse are no longer limited to the larger clients. Even a startup can use these features, immediately.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the scalability, as it grows according to our needs.

The part that I like best is that you only pay for what you are using.

What needs improvement?

The OLAP slide and dice features need to be improved. For example, if a business wants to bring in a general ledger from an ERP, they want to slice and dice the data. What we have found is that they have a lot of formulas that are used to calculate metrics, so what we do is use SQL Server Analysis Services. The question then becomes one of adopting a single vendor and transitioning to Azure. If Redshift had similar capabilities then it would be very good.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Amazon Redshift for about five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is awesome. We have been using it for quite a while and haven't faced any issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is very good. You can start at a very low scale and just keep expanding as required. It is the type of product that fits organizations of all sizes.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have contacted support on several occasions. With our most recent customer, they are pretty large and we were directly in touch with the regional account manager, who is the head of database analytics for India. This person was directly involved in our calls and helped with the evaluation, so the support has been pretty good.

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

We have worked with Teradata and more recently, have been working with Azure SQL Warehouse. Teradata is an on-premises solution and the upfront costs are high. Comparing Azure SQL Warehouse and Amazon Redshift, in terms of features I think that they are pretty much on par.

The SQL Data Warehouse does have better OLAP capabilities, and they also offer a level of serverless capability where they have split the compute and the storage. This means that they can operate at a lower cost in the development environment.

Many of our clients have begun to adopt Power BI, and once they start using it, they tend to lean towards Azure and the Azure SQL Data Warehouse. The fact that Power BI is free, makes quite an impact.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward, once you get used to it. There is a lot of documentation available.

What about the implementation team?

We handle the implementation and deployment of Redshift for our clients.

What other advice do I have?

I am interested in seeing a split between compute and storage, which is something that they are currently working on. We plan to start leveraging it at some point in the future.

In summary, I think that Amazon Redshift is a very good data warehouse and we really like it a lot.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Amazon Redshift
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Amazon Redshift. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
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Padmanesh NC - PeerSpot reviewer
Big Data Solution Architect - Spatial Data Specialist at SCIERA, INC
Reseller
Top 5Leaderboard
It processes petabytes of data and supports many file formats. Restoring huge snapshots takes too long.

What is most valuable?

Scalability: Ability to load huge number of datasets (I have experience with petabytes of data) and process those things. Storage is not limited. We can increase whatever we want.

Performance: The distributed architecture of Redshift has the capacity to process the workflow in a different cluster and coordinate those things in the leader node, making the process much faster.

Flexibility: This feature is helpful for user to increase the node size and config depending on their need. There is no need to wait for hardware to be in place whenever we increase the dataset. Redshift provides the option to increase the node or cluster size whenever required.

Multi-formatted accessibility: The Redshift engine has the capability to read the following file formats: CSV, DELIMITER, FIXEDWIDTH, AVRO, JSON, BZIP2, GZIP, LZOP. The user can choose which is best for their requirements.

VPC configuration: VPC configuration secures our dataset, which we keep inside the Redshift cluster. This VPC config doesn’t allow any third party in or out bound against firewall.

Python UDF calls: This is useful for a user to create their own user-defined function through Python and import that class into Redshift and process the dataset.

How has it helped my organization?

We were using MySQL & MongoDB for our regular operations, but when we grew, we were forced to handle a huge number of datasets. It could be petabytes of data in and out on a regular basis. We struggled a lot to complete the operations in a timely manner. With Amazon Redshift, we gained a lot in terms of timing, as well as project completion.

Some of the scoring mechanism really works well in the distributed architecture of Amazon Redshift.

What needs improvement?

Of course, every product has pluses and minuses. From that perspective, Amazon Redshift has some issues with snapshot restoring when we handle huge datasets. When our snapshot size is really huge, like 20 TB+, we are forced to wait a long time to get it restored. This is reasonable, as they need to transfer the entire dataset to the cluster.

My thought on this issue is that Amazon has their own data centers and they are connecting each region of storage through Direct Connect. The input and output network data transfer might not be a complex thing. For example, if they used 10 Gbps network transfer, they can transfer 1 TB in less than two minutes, but that’s not happening now. To restore 1 TB of data, it takes more than 30-40 minutes.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used it for the last 3.5 Years.

I am using Amazon Redshift for big data mapping and data aggregation.

We are using most of their products. Specifically, we are using their dedicated data-centre service (Direct Connect). We are using Amazon products such as Amazon EC2, S3, SQS, EMR, ML, CloudWatch, Redshift, DynamoDB, etc., for more than 10-12 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have encountered stability issues. A few weeks ago, I encountered an issue with hardware failure and database health status failure. When we face these kind of issues, we can't do anything from our side until the Amazon technical team finds the issue and rectifies it. It takes time to get resolved. If we are in a rush to deliver something for a client and encountered these issue, we are really screwed.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Ofcourse. When the amount of data that we handle in the cluster grew, we need to increase the cluster or node size. Apparently, the size of node or cluster increases the hold time for synchronizing the data (meta data) with the node manager. The initial time increases when we start the cluster.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

Customer Service good. But couldn't make direct call to customer service many times. I could catch them through their web UI rather making direct call.

Technical Support:

Technical support is really great, but it’s paid support. The Basic Support plan doesn't have the option for technical support. It’s only providing billing support.

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

I have experience working in Hadoop as well. When I compare the two (Redshift & Hadoop), Redshift is more user friendly in terms of configuration and maintenance.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of Amazon Redshift is so simple and straightforward. We do not need to read or understand any of the technical documentation. Simply said, it’s a plug-and-play service or platform.

What about the implementation team?

I have implemented through in-house.

What was our ROI?

In terms of ROI, I can't directly convert to it. Because we are not using only Redshift. We are using multiple product to increase our revenue and decrease time consumption. So It's difficult to calculate ROI of Redshift usage.

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

Pricing and licensing is so important. In terms of pricing, it's bit high, as they are using standard hardware. My advice to users is: We need to start the cluster when we require it. At the end of the workday, we can just snapshot the clusters and shut them down. And then we restore those snapshots when we need them back. That way, we are charged only for usage rather than spending money on wait time or sleep.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I evaluated Hadoop and Spark, along with Redshift. I have no negative comments about those other products. Redshift is flexible in terms of configuration, maintenance and security, especially VPC configuration, which secures our data a lot.

What other advice do I have?

Use this product for huge data mapping or aggregation. Use Redshift through VPC to keep their data very secure and for a long time.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user576444 - PeerSpot reviewer
Rails Developer at a recruiting/HR firm with 51-200 employees
Vendor
It's based on PostgreSQL, is a managed solution, and has low price per terabyte per year.

What is most valuable?

  • It is based on PostgreSQL.
  • It’s managed. Meaning, AWS takes care of handling infrastructure, deployments, encryption, and uptime for you.
  • It’s cheap when you consider the price per terrabyte per year.
  • It’s integrated into the AWS stack.

How has it helped my organization?

At my previous company that does mobile analytics as its core product, we moved all the analytics backend from MongoDB to Redshift. Where I currently work, we use it as our main data lake/data warehouse.

What needs improvement?

While It's probably the best product of its category (managed SQL-based data warehouse at scale), it has a few shortcomings, although very few.

The main issue people complain about, and I agree with the claim, is that it's hard to load your data into it. You need to first export your data on S3 as CSV, JSON or AVRO. Then you can load it into Redshift. And even then, you have to make sure your data is properly formatted. (you can use the copy options: TRUNCATECOLUMNS to load fields that are too big, and MAXERROR to allow for a given number of errors while loading). In general, ETL and data cleaning is a hurdle in data engineering, and Redshift suffers from it.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used Redshift for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I once had an issue because my data contained a Unicode NULL character in a VARCHAR field ("\u0000"). The AWS support has been very quick and helpful to respond. Other than that, I have had no issues whatsoever.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No scalability issues whatsoever.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is very good.

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

At my previous company, we switched from MongoDB to Redshift. The main reason was price and performance. At my current company, we started a data warehouse (greenfield project). The choice was between Google BigQuery and AWS Redshift. The main criteria was that Redshift was PostgreSQL-based and supports CTE and Window functions (PostgreSQL features).

How was the initial setup?

The big part when using Redshift is setting up the ETLs and doing the data cleaning. It was very hard when moving from MongoDB, because I had to re-discover our data schema (that had no spec). With that said, in both cases (moving from MongoDB and starting from scratch), I had a prototype up in about a day. By that I mean that I had the most important parts of my data loaded into Redshift and I could query it.

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

The pricing page is explicit. Choose what suits your needs in terms of storage and performance.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

For setting up a data warehouse, BigQuery was a serious contender. BigQuery is simpler to setup and scale. It's also more of a black box: you worry less what's inside and how it scales and you get charged for what you consume (which is both a pro and a con). With Redshift, you choose in advance the type of machine you want, like EC2 (resizing your cluster is easy).

What other advice do I have?

If you evaluate Redshift, chances are that you should evaluate BigQuery too. So take the time to weigh the pro and cons of each (plenty has been written online about that).

Take a look at the reserved instances pricing. It is very advantageous if you know you will stick with Redshift for some time.

Take the time to learn PostgreSQL (eg: https://www.pgexercises.com/). Redshift, while based on PostgreSQL 8.0, supports a good number of advanced Postgres features.

Do not be afraid of joins. PostgreSQL is performs very well in this regard.
If you need performance, have a look at the suggested optimizations in the official documentation (such as setting up the correct distkeys, sortkeys and compression schemes).

Understand that Redshift has no indexes.

Understand that Redshift is an analytical database with columnar storage, and that it does not enforce constraints.

Redshift plays very well with a PostgreSQL instance in RDS linked to it via DBLINK (see this guide: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/big-data/join-amazon-redshift-and-amazon-rds-postgresql-with-dblink/). I've used this in production at my current company, and this is tremendously useful. You can have your raw data in Redshift and aggregate it directly into RDS. To do this, insert into RDS what you select from Redshift through the dblink.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user583371 - PeerSpot reviewer
BI Architect at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
Vendor
Columnar storage technology is valuable.

What is most valuable?

Columnar storage technology is the most valuable feature of this solution.

How has it helped my organization?

We can get the SLS/SLAs in our daily processes.

What needs improvement?

Some improvements can be brought about in:

Restore table:

I would like to use this option to move data across different clusters. Right now, you can only restore a table from the same cluster.

Right now, the feature only permits bringing the table back in the same cluster, based on the snapshot taken. I would like to have a similar option to move data across different clusters, right now I have to UNLOAD from cluster A and then COPY in cluster B. I would like to use the snapshots taken to bring the data in the cluster I need.
Maybe current design cannot be used, because it is based on nodes and data distribution.

But, our real scenario is: if we lose the data and we need to recover it in other cluster, we have to do:

1) Restore table in current table with a different name

2) Unload data to s3

3) Copy data to a new cluster. When we are talking about billions of records is complex to do.

Vacuum process: The vacuum needs to be segmented. For example, after 24 hours of execution, I had to cancel the process and 0% was sorted (big table).


Vacuum process:

The vacuum needs to be segmented, example after 24 hr of execution, I had to cancel the process and 0 % was sorted (big table)"

For big tables (billions of records). if the table is 100% unsorted, the vacuum can take more than 24hrs. If we don't have this timeframe, we have to work around taking out the data to additional tables and run vacuum by batches in the main table.

Why, because If I run the vacuum directly over the main table, and I stop it after 5 hrs, 0 records will be sorted. I would like to run the vacuum over the main table, stop when I need but get vacuumed some records. Like incremental process.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used this solution for around three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We did encounter stability issues, i.e., if you are using more than 25 nodes (ds2.xlarge), the cluster is totally unstable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have not experienced any scalability issues.

How are customer service and technical support?

I would rate the technical support a 9/10 for normal issues.

However, for advanced issues, I would give it a 5/10 since I had to go directly with the AWS engineers support.

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

Initially, we were using the Microsoft SQL solution. We decided to move over to this product due to the DWH volume and performance.

How was the initial setup?

In my opinion, the setup was normal.

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

Based on quality of the product and its price, it is the one of the best options available in the market now.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We also looked at the Oracle solution.

What other advice do I have?

You need to make sure that the space used in DWH has to be a maximum of 50% of the total space.

You must create processes to vacuum and analyze tables frequently. Also, before creating the tables, you should choose the right encoding, DISTKEY and sort keys.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user576441 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer [Redshift Programmer] at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Consultant
It supports SCD1 and SCD2, and the star schema. Improvement is needed in the scope of data types and complex RDBMS functionalities.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features of this product are:

  • Processing huge data in petabytes
  • Massively Parallel Processing (MPP)
  • Concept of data compression
  • The way it stores the data in drives especially with the distribution key
  • Supports BI tools like MicroStrategy (MSTR) and Tableau
  • Supports all the data warehouse core features such as SCD1 and SCD2, and different schemas like the star schema

How has it helped my organization?

It has helped us to understand the response and interest of the customers and the user conversion rate in this competitive world. Thus, it has helped us in the decision-making process.

What needs improvement?

In most of the scenarios, the data source for Redshift will be traditional RDBMS like MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL server, etc. After migrating to Redshift, we will find few disconnects for w.r.t data types, the stored procedures and other complex functionalities. There is a need for improvement in these aspects, mainly in the scope of data types and some complex functionalities which we can perform in RDBMS.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used this solution for more than a year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have not encountered any issues with stability. In terms of performance, Redshift is highly stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have not encountered any issues with scalability. We can easily scale the nodes in AWS only with a few clicks.

How are customer service and technical support?

I would give the technical support a 6 out of 10 rating.

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

We have not used any other solution.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was straightforward for those who know AWS.

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

The Redshift pricing policy is easy to understand.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other options prior to selecting this solution.

What other advice do I have?

As of now, Redshift is far better than the other products in the market.

Lastly, I would like to mention that Redshift is more about scaling and stabilizing your data. One should also focus on data modeling from time to time.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer937020 - PeerSpot reviewer
Financial Performance Manager at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Stable and easy to migrate to the could but data uploading could be faster
Pros and Cons
  • "Changing from local servers to the cloud is very easy. It's so nice not to have to worry about physical servers."
  • "The refreshment rate of data reaching Redshift from other sources should be faster."

What is our primary use case?

Our data warehouse is Redshift now.

What is most valuable?

Overall, I'm satisfied with the solution so far, and, from an accounting perspective, it works well for my tasks and duties. 

The product is very stable. 

Changing from local servers to the cloud is very easy. It's so nice not to have to worry about physical servers. 

What needs improvement?

We need more AWS applications. They have some solutions from Amazon that can manage performance, however, we will need something that can also manage financial reporting, visualization, and analytics - instead of having to go to other solutions like Tableau or Power BI. If they can offer comparable options, we'd like to be able to choose all AWS solutions instead of other platforms. 

The refreshment rate of data reaching Redshift from other sources should be faster.

It could be more efficient during tasks such as data refreshing or uploading. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for about a year or so. It hasn't been too long just yet.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is very stable. It's better than OWC, as a technology. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

How are customer service and technical support?

I cannot speak to how helpful technical support is as this is not my area of expertise here. I'm not directly connected with AWS. That said, it is my understanding that they are doing a pretty good job with our own technical team and they have been helpful.

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

We used ODBC before to maintain our tables. Oracle ODBC was used as a server, as a data warehouse environment.

Changing to Redshift was a big change for us. However, after a while, we get used to it and it is okay now as it's coming together under a bigger picture of a framework, as a bigger framework. We are going to keep everything in the cloud and moving to AWS and we will put everything there and manage it as a framework going forward.

How was the initial setup?

I'm not using it day in, day out and I did not handle the initial setup. There is a team involved with that side of the product. I'm using it for the closing of the accounting cycle every month. I don't handle implementation tasks. 

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

I cannot speak to the pricing. I don't handle billing or payments. 

What other advice do I have?

We're customers and end-users.

While I cannot speak to the exact version number, my understanding is that we are using the most up-to-date version of the solution. 

I'd advise those considering the solution to go for AWS products. They are the best. You will have more synergy between your software. It's nice not having multi-software working on the technology itself. If you can, use as many genuine Amazon products as possible and integrate them together. 

Overall, I would rate the product at a seven out of ten. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1463265 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Great modeling capabilities and very user friendly SQL editor and connectors
Pros and Cons
  • "Has a very user-friendly SQL editor and it's very easy to use the connectors."
  • "Improvement could be made in the area of streaming data."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case of this product is as a data warehouse. We are partners with Amazon. 

What is most valuable?

Amazon Redshift has a very user-friendly SQL editor and it's very easy to use the connectors. The product provides a lot of options to connect to different sources and the modeling capabilities are also good. As a fully managed data warehouse solution, the two important aspects are the connectors and how well we can use SQL for data modeling. In both cases, this is an efficient product.

What needs improvement?

Improvement could be made in the area of streaming data. The capability can definitely be improved. There are other products like Kinesis which is a separate service we use for streaming data ingestion. Whatever features are missing in Redshift, they have separate sources but if there were the feasibility to ingest real-time streaming data directly into RedShift, that would be very useful. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for the past year. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The product is 100% stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. This is backend technology and end users are not aware they are using it. We probably have four or five users in the company. 

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is good, they're very responsive. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very simple because it's a fully managed service and not much is required from the user's end.

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

The licensing is paid on a monthly basis, and I think the pricing is acceptable. They also have a pay-per-go model which is on a per user basis. 

What other advice do I have?

If a company is already using Amazon Cloud or they're looking for a cloud solution, Amazon is one of the oldest and most reliable cloud service providers and Redshift is a no-brainer for data warehouse needs.

I rate this product a nine out of 10. 

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Amazon Redshift Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: November 2024
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free Amazon Redshift Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.