Our primary use case of this product is as a data warehouse. We are partners with Amazon.
Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
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?
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.
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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 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
Manager BI Development at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
The fact that it stores data using a columnar approach allows us to use columns in join conditions.
What is most valuable?
Redshift gives extremely fast response involving large tables. This is the most important feature I look for in data warehouse solutions. Often you came across use cases where it is not possible to distribute data on a certain column, yet you need this column in join conditions. Redshift stores data using a columnar approach, which is useful for data aggregation.
All this at an extremely low price makes it possible for small to medium sized organizations to use Redshift’s power to get business insights.
How has it helped my organization?
One of my clients required large amounts of data but had a low budget. Amazon Redshift was the perfect choice for my client. We joined two tables containing billions of rows each and got results back in 27 seconds with a relatively small cluster of nodes.
What needs improvement?
Amazon should bring more SQL functions that are required in data warehouse implementations. It lacks SQL functions for complex data processing. A very small example is recursive queries. However, Amazon is developing the product at a fast pace and bringing new features with every release.
For how long have I used the solution?
I’ve been using Redshift for more than two years. I created one traditional data warehouse with 3-tier architecture and one big data solution.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have not really had stability problems. The product is mature and can be utilized for production systems.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Since Redshift is on AWS cloud, scalability is not an issue. With a few clicks, cluster size can be increased or reduced. This is useful especially when you expect a large amount of data processing temporarily. For example, on Black Friday retail organizations expect large amounts of data flow/processing. Redshift can be scaled up for few days to accommodate the surge of data and then scaled back to normal cluster size to save OPEX.
How are customer service and technical support?
The AWS team gives special focus to customer support. This is a very big benefit of going to the cloud. You get a reply from AWS in small time frame.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I worked on Teradata and IBM solutions. Redshift gives performance similar to these solutions and costs a fraction of the amount.
How was the initial setup?
Your Redshift can be up and running with few clicks and in less than 5 minutes. A big benefit when you shift to cloud.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We analyzed Microsoft, Oracle, AWS RDS and Mango DB for our requirements.
What other advice do I have?
Redshift is based on PostgreSQL and adds MPP/columnar features to make it a data warehouse product. It is very easy for developers to adopt this solution. Your existing team can easily work on Redshift with no extra cost of learning.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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DBA at Kimetrics
Costs less than Oracle Cloud or Microsoft Azure solutions
Pros and Cons
- "Amazon Redshift is very fast. It has really good response times. It's very user-friendly."
- "There is some missing functionality and sometimes it's so difficult to work in. We need to convert these functionalities using VACUUM inside Amazon Redshift and then it causes some complexity."
What is most valuable?
Amazon Redshift is very fast. It has really good response times. It's very user-friendly.
What needs improvement?
Redshift is a multi-tier engine that works like a calculator. There is some missing functionality and sometimes it's so difficult to work in. We need to convert these functionalities using VACUUM inside Amazon Redshift and then it causes some complexity. Sometimes I'd like for them to support some special features or some special installations because we need automatic populations. I would like to see more programming outside of the cloud. I would like to see more functionalities under JSON files. the only functionality that they have now with JSON is reports. I would also like to see other data sources like MongoDB.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Amazon Redshift for three years. I use the latest version because it is on Amazon's public cloud.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The management of the dates for what we can deliver to it, it's always specific to the form that's defined to Amazon Redshift.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have used their technical support only a few times. Before talking to support I usually try to troubleshoot things myself and I'm usually able to resolve any issues.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
In the past year, we have used Azure, but the committee has chosen Amazon Redshift because it is better than Azure for our company needs. We have grown around Amazon Redshift and other AWS solutions.
How was the initial setup?
Amazon Redshift is not as straightforward as other AWS tools but it is not that difficult.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Amazon Redshift costs less than Oracle Cloud or Microsoft Azure.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I started using Amazon Redshift because I started working for this company that was working with both Azure and Amazon. The company eventually moved all to Amazon. I wasn't sure why they didn't continue to use Azure. My experience was more with Microsoft technology so I prefer Azure. But, there are some interesting features in Amazon Redshift that works better. I have also used Oracle Cloud.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend Amazon Redshift as it is part of the AWS platform and they are the biggest in the world.
I would give Amazon Redshift a rating of eight on a scale 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.
Senior Solutions Engineer, West at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
It helped my customers migrate off on-premise platforms
Pros and Cons
- "Redshift COPY command, because much of my work involved helping customers migrate large amounts of data into Redshift."
- "Migrating data from other data sources can be challenging when you are working with multibyte character sets."
What is most valuable?
Redshift COPY command, because much of my work involved helping customers migrate large amounts of data into Redshift.
How has it helped my organization?
It helped my customers migrate off on-premise platforms such as Teradata to Redshift, at a fraction of the cost.
What needs improvement?
There are challenges with dealing with character set mismatches. Migrating data from other data sources can be challenging when you are working with multibyte character sets.
For how long have I used the solution?
Two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
No.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I personally haven’t hit scalability issues but at dinner a year ago with a few of my existing customers (all Fortune 500 companies), I was told there are scalability issues once you get to 32-nodes.
One of my previous customers told me they were migrating off Redshift because they hit the ceiling and had scalability issues. They told me the responsiveness they were getting was inferior to alternative solutions once your Redshift gets to a specific size.
How are customer service and technical support?
I never utilized AWS technical support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I’ve helped customers migrate off Teradata, SQL Server , Oracle Exadata, Greenplum, and ParAccel Matrix to Redshift. Some due to cost savings, others because of the EOL of the product.
How was the initial setup?
Setup of Redshift infrastructure is pretty straightforward. I’ve been told that setting up partitions can be tricky in order to ensure good performance.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I have nothing to add here as I wasn’t involved in this part of the process. However, one of my customers went with Google Big Query over Redshift because it was significantly cheaper for their project.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I only provided advice to my customers, but some looked at Azure SQL DW , Greenplum, Netezza, and Google Big Query as possible alternatives
What other advice do I have?
Be careful with vendor lock-in! You cannot move your Redshift environment to a different cloud provider or to an on-premise solution.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
BI Manager at jfrog
You can copy JSON to the column and have it analyzed using simple functions
Pros and Cons
- "You can copy JSON to the column and have it analyzed using simple functions."
- "It lacks a few features which can be very useful, such as stored procedures"
What is most valuable?
The features I find valuable in Redshift are JSON format support. You can copy JSON to the column and have it analyzed using simple functions. Second, is the parallel off/on where you can choose if you want it to unload to split files or into one file.
How has it helped my organization?
Since we have lots of data sources and high volumes, we needed a unified and organized DB that can handle these amounts and will be our single source of truth for the organization. Therefore, Redshift is the best solution.
What needs improvement?
It lacks a few features which can be very useful, such as stored procedures, Also, one needs to perform Vacuum in order to manage this DB. It would be nice not to worry about that and have this manageable.
For how long have I used the solution?
Three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Yes. Sometimes, for some reason, Redshift is down (not due to maintenance).
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
No, cause we know how to use Redshift. We have a cluster of both HDD and SSD for which we keep the maximum data in each, so it would be scalable.
How is customer service and technical support?
Great. They are available and very helpful.
How was the initial setup?
Initial setup is very straightforward, very easy. No need of any side help.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
If you want to think of every query you make but want to know that your nodes are fully managed, then use BigQuery Data Analytics. If you want a fixed price, an to not worry about every query, but you need to manage your nodes personally, use Redshift.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I did not. we did consider using BigQuery Data Analytics, but eventually, we decided to use Redshift.
What other advice do I have?
My rating would be 8.5. This a great product, but one still needs to know how to manage clusters and nodes.
In order to make your DB scalable and reliable. it has the greatest benefit of build on PostgreSQL, so any data specialist that has SQL experience can handle Redshift.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
BI Architect & Developer (contract) at a retailer with 501-1,000 employees
You can configure tables to live in the memory of all of the available cores.
What is most valuable?
Column store and distributed processing is optimized for read access. We grew to 3000+ users with no impact.
Column store is a data compression technique for relational data. I’m using it now in SQL Server 2016. We configured a 16-core VM for handling requests on the DB. The recommendation was to separate inbound data packets into related chunks, which were 1/16th of the size.
This way, the import process could make full use of parallelization, and it worked. We imported 20 million rows of sales facts in less than 15 seconds, and the content was query-able immediately. I’ve never seen that before. This was impressive. This meant that we could completely rebuild the data warehouse to “current” from "scratch" within minutes, assuming that the data was in S3 already.
Tables that would typically be 2GB in size are now about 250MB. This means more data in memory. You can also configure the tables to live in the memory of all of the available cores. This is good for small dimension tables. You can also fragment them across all cores, for the larger fact tables. This allows for distributed query processing. Once you set it up, it just worked. It was all specified in the PG-SQL table statements.
There were two data centers in Sydney that were guaranteeing us a distributed solution. We really didn’t notice this. It was more of a check box situation. At one point, there was an outage at AWS, but it didn’t impact our operations directly.
How has it helped my organization?
This has given us the ability to provide metrics to the large number of company staff on their performance without impacting core systems.
What needs improvement?
I’d like to see these RedShift features arrive in other languages, such as SQL's ColumnStore index.
.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used this solution for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There have been no stability issues.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support always met my expectations.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I was on a team that was using AWS tools for Dick Smith Electronics (now liquidated). The tools ceased use in February of 2016.
Prior to that, we were using them fully for about 3 years. We loaded data to Redshift according to the best practices included in the online docs and through consultation with the AWS staff. The combination of S3 and Redshift for this purpose was very high in performance. Redshift was used to provide the data model to an instance of MicroStrategy for BI reporting.
We were using MicroStrategy, which generated all the SQL that our reporting services needed.
As such, I could only comment on the data engineering phase. Technically, this was so impressive that I don’t know what to add. I don’t recall feeling that it missed anything. If anything, I was not using all the available features. AWS documentation is great in this regard. You can tell they have put a lot of thought into it.
A lot of the future direction in database technology has to do with memory optimization and concurrency (VoltDB). This is more targeted towards transactional processing, and not data warehousing.
Memory-only data warehousing solves a lot of access issues without having to think too hard about the problem from the consumers' point of view. I am sure that you can already configure this.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Manager at Protiviti
Good prediction modeling and reporting features, but customer support should be improved
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is its scalability."
- "The technical support should be better in terms of their knowledge, and they should be more customer-friendly."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use Amazon Redshift for prediction modeling and business reporting.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is its scalability.
What needs improvement?
The technical support should be better in terms of their knowledge, and they should be more customer-friendly.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Amazon Redshift for approximately one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This is a stable product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is very good, and it is one of the best features of this solution.
We have approximately 10 people who use it, four of which are engineers. At this point, we do not have plans to increase the number of users.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. I do not recall, however, how long it took to deploy.
What other advice do I have?
In summary, this is a good solution and I recommend it. That said, the customer support needs to be improved.
I would rate this solution a seven 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.
Senior System Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Has good data updates and latency between data-refreshes
Pros and Cons
- "In terms of valuable features, I like the columnar storage that Redshift provides. The storage is one of the key features that we're looking for. Also, the data updates and the latency between the data-refreshes."
- "Pricing is one of the things that it could improve. It should be more competitive."
What is our primary use case?
My primary use for Amazon Redshift is for analytical purposes.
What is most valuable?
In terms of valuable features, I like the columnar storage that Redshift provides. The storage is one of the key features that we're looking for. Also, the data updates and the latency between the data-refreshes are valuable.
What needs improvement?
Pricing is one of the concerns that I have because if you compare Snowflake with Redshift, it provides some of the same services, but at a much cheaper rate. So pricing is one of the things that it could improve. It should be more competitive.
Otherwise, everything else looks good, especially the data storage and analytical processes.
For how long have I used the solution?
I just started using Amazon Redshift. I'm still learning about the product and about how the pricing and the dynamic skilling are done.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I understand that Amazon Redshift is quite stable and it has features like higher readability. So I think it should be a good product to be used.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have not been in touch with support but I will be needing their support in the near future to help me set up the environment.
How was the initial setup?
In terms of the initial setup, as I said I've still not started using it, so I pray that it's going to be pretty easy for me to set it up.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Of course I would advise others to choose Amazon Redshift, as long as pricing is not a concern for them.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale of 1 - 10, where 1 is the worst and 10 is the best, I'd give it an 8.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
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