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PeerSpot user
Senior Engineer, Big-Data/Data-Warehousing at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
We create different-sized clusters and orchestrate them using the SDK.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features to us are: speed, DML, the fact that it is cloud-based, the management console, and Boto3.

Because we are dealing with a lot of data, speed is always important. Redshift is blistering fast when doing "deep" copies and inserts. Conceptually, my data-transformation pipelines are a series of proprietary "waves" that leverage Redshift's DML/"deep" copy/insert strengths. Doing all this in the cloud allows us to easily test alternatives. We create different sized Redshift clusters and orchestrate them by using the SDK (Python Boto3). We go beyond the traditional DWH to "infrastructure-as-software".

How has it helped my organization?

Redshift has helped to transform Makerbot into a data-driven company.

What needs improvement?

Integrating database security/access rights with AWS IAM would be great. I would also like to see more DML features that might aid in processing unstructured or log-file data. This would allow us to avoid having to use EMR/Hadoop.

For how long have I used the solution?

We’ve used Amazon Redshift for 3 years.

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November 2024
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What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

We did not encounter any deployment issues.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We did not encounter any issues with stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We did not encounter any issues with scalability.

How are customer service and support?

Customer Service:

I think the customer services is adequate.

Technical Support:

The level of technical support is good.

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

We tried prior solutions, but they had limited or no scalability/agility.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward.

What was our ROI?

It took less than a year for the product to pay for itself.

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

Regarding pricing and licensing, I advise to start small and have your developers/DBA use table compression and partitioning from the start.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We have used different options over the last 20 years. We found AWS Redshift to be the leader in capability and provides an ecosystem of related services from AWS, many of which are free.

What other advice do I have?

My advice to other is to prototype, prototype, prototype! Everything depends on your data and what you need to do to it. No two projects are the same.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user1135503 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Analyst at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Consultant
Good performance and integrates well with our Tableau solution
Pros and Cons
  • "The processing of data is very fast."
  • "It would be useful to have an option where all of the data can be queried at once and then have the result shown."

What is our primary use case?

We use Amazon S3 along with RedShift for storing our data. The data comes from various sources, including our client and third-parties. We get the data as an S3 file and then load it into RedShift using the ETL tools. RedShift will then act as the data source for Tableau, which is used for forecasting and other marketing activities.

What is most valuable?

The processing of data is very fast.

What needs improvement?

It would be useful to have an option where all of the data can be queried at once and then have the result shown. As it is now, when we run a query and we are looking at the results, part of the data remains to be processed at the back end. That works very well, but in some cases, we require the whole data to be queried at once and then have the results shown. We have not faced many use cases where it would have been useful, but in one or two, we used other methods to achieve this goal.

When our clients contact customer support, they don't want to speak with a machine. Instead, they want to chat with a real person who can provide a solution. Customer service bots can provide solutions but they cannot understand our problems.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Amazon RedShift for about two and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

RedShift is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Given that RedShift is a cloud-based solution, scalability is very good. I have not faced any issues regarding that. We have about 20 users, who are all developers.

Beyond the development stage and in terms of the users who make use of the data for Tableau, there are many people all around the world. I do not know the number, but it could be 1,000 or it could be 10,000. When it leaves us and goes into production, it is the client who takes care of it. One of the clients I am working with now has more than 10,000 personnel.

How are customer service and technical support?

I do not have enough direct contact with the solution to see issues that would require contacting technical support. I work with the data but not so much on the technical side. It is the developers who would see these issues and would do so. The level of support is based on our subscription plan.

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

The company was using other solutions such as Google Cloud and the Microsoft Cloud Service, but I have not personally used these solutions.

What other advice do I have?

I am very happy with what RedShift has. So far, anything that I have required has been there and whatever use case I have faced, the functionality is available.

My advice for anybody who is implementing this solution is to look into what certifications are available and which ones are required for different roles. Depending on the job, different certifications are relevant or required. For example, as a business analyst, a coding certification would not be useful for me and it would be a waste of money. These things should all be considered before beginning with any certifications.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

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

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
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.
814,763 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user869871 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Consultant at Inawisdom
User
Easy to load and reload data. Retaining data long-term should be cheaper.
Pros and Cons
  • "The ability to reload data multiple times at different times."
  • "Should be made available across zones, like other Multi-AZ solutions."

What is our primary use case?

  • Storing and querying data in near real time.
  • Loading millions of raw CSV records.
  • Running data comparisons and queries, then shutting it all down all within a few hours, once a week.

How has it helped my organization?

Easy to load and reload data.

What is most valuable?

  • Fast load times 
  • Flexibility in column definitions
  • The ability to reload data multiple times at different times.

What needs improvement?

  • It would be nice if it was a bit cheaper to retain data long-term. 
  • Should be made available across zones, like other Multi-AZ solutions.

For how long have I used the solution?

Less than one year.

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

Per hour pricing is helpful to keep the costs of a pilot down, but long-term retention is expensive.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
High performance, efficient, and helpful support
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features of Amazon Redshift are that its fast and efficient. We have lots of TBs of data and it's very fast."
  • "Amazon Redshift could improve the user interface support."

What is our primary use case?

We are using Amazon Redshift services to query the data and to perform certain data science operations on that data, such as applying a machine learning algorithm or doing an analysis.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features of Amazon Redshift are that its fast and efficient. We have lots of TBs of data and it's very fast.

What needs improvement?

Amazon Redshift could improve the user interface support.

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?

Amazon Redshift is a stable solution. However, there are many times the environment configuration changes very quickly without any intimidation and it creates a lot of problems for running our codes.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability of Amazon Redshift is good. The solution is best suited for larger-scale businesses because the price is affordable for them and they need the complexity.

How are customer service and support?

The support from Amazon Redshift is very good.

How was the initial setup?

Amazon Redshift is somewhat complex to deploy. The process could improve.

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

Amazon Redshift is an expensive solution. Larger organizations can afford this solution, but smaller businesses would struggle to afford it.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Amazon Redshift an eight out of ten.

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
PeerSpot user
it_user576450 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Science Lead at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
The PostgreSQL interface is good because you can play with big data with just SQL.

What is most valuable?

The valuable features are:

  • PostgreSQL Interface
  • Scalability
  • Pricing/Maintenance/Setup

The PostgreSQL interface is good because you can play with big data with just SQL. This is one of the reasons why they made Hive.

However, Hive’s SQL is still not as standard as what Redshift provides:
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/red...

How has it helped my organization?

Redshift has been the data warehouse in at least three of my previous companies. The impact is huge to anyone who uses data in any way.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see improvements in the database integrations. Currently, Amazon does not provide real-time/near real-time integration with other products like RDS or DynamoDB out-of-the-box.

We need to either build the integrations ourselves, or rely on third-party services which are not always the best.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for over three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There were stability issues in the beginning. However, the product has improved quite a lot in the last two years in term of stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Redshift can scale up to a petabyte with a few simple clicks.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is good, but similar to any other Amazon Web Service, you have to pay for a good level of technical support.

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

We did not have a previous solution. Redshift worked for us the first time we tried. The pricing could not be beaten by anything else in the market at that time.

How was the initial setup?

The installation was straightforward and only required a few clicks.

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

Pricing was quite a strong point of Redshift when it was first released. Nowadays, quite a number of other services are very competitive in pricing, such as BigQuery.

What other advice do I have?

Redshift, like any other big data technology, isn’t a silver bullet for everything. The most important thing is to understand your data and your requirements before you make any decision to use any technology.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user689532 - PeerSpot reviewer
Full Stack Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Consultant
Valuable features are performance, data compression, and scalability. Query compilation time needs a lot of improvement.
Pros and Cons
  • "The valuable features are performance, data compression, and scalability."
  • "Query compilation time needs a lot of improvement for cases where you are generating queries dynamically."

What is most valuable?

The valuable features are performance, data compression, and scalability.

What needs improvement?

Query compilation time needs a lot of improvement for cases where you are generating queries dynamically. Also, it would help tremendously to have some more user-friendly, query optimization helper tools.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using the solution for 24 months now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have not faced any stability related issues so far.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The time it takes to scale the cluster up or down is not trivial and it can take a while. In case you need to do this fast, you will need to think about other solutions.

How are customer service and technical support?

Apart from the official documentation, we haven't had the need to reach out to technical support yet. The quality of the documentation is very good. There are a lot of very useful articles from the community.

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

Previously, we were using AWS RDS for our use case. We found that we had outgrown it. Our data grew in size and we wanted to still have performance queries.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of the cluster was pretty straightforward. The following step, setting the right table configuration, was not so straightforward, though. It required an understanding of how the product works. Sort and distribution keys are required concepts to know about.

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

Redshift is very cost effective for a cloud based solution if you need to scale it a lot. For smaller data sizes, I would think about using other products.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We were thinking about using a self-managed PostgreSQL. We chose Redshift because we didn't need to manage it ourselves and because it integrates with the rest of the AWS services more fluently.

We are currently evaluating Druid.

What other advice do I have?

It is very important to understand how Redshift is designed to work. The database schema design is not trivial and requires an in-depth knowledge about it, especially if your use-case requires it to perform well.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
BI Manager at jfrog
Real User
Allows you write complex queries and perform row by row processes
Pros and Cons
  • "It allows you write complex queries and perform row by row processes."
  • "It allows for the storage of huge amounts of data."
  • "In the next release, a pivot function would be a big help. It could save a lot of time creating a query or process to handle operations."

What is our primary use case?

We use it to build a data warehouse and a centralized location for all of our data sources, allowing for in-depth analysis by using SQL queries.

How has it helped my organization?

  • Allows for the storage of huge amounts of data. 
  • Assists users to perform ad hoc analysis on a lot sources together.

What is most valuable?

  • Windows functions, such as LEAD and LAG.
  • Allows you write complex queries and perform row by row processes.

What needs improvement?

In the next release, a pivot function would be a big help. It could save a lot of time creating a query or process to handle operations.

For how long have I used the solution?

Three to five years.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Consultant at kulki data management & consultants
Real User
Integration with Excel is useful and has excellent performance
Pros and Cons
  • "Redshift's Excel features are handy. Redshift spectrum allows you to directly query the data on an Excel sheet. Now, SQL Server also allows this, but Redshift has many more features."
  • "Amazon should provide more cloud-native tools that can integrate with Redshift like Microsoft's development tools for Azure."

What is most valuable?

Redshift's Excel features are handy. Redshift spectrum allows you to directly query the data on an Excel sheet. Now, SQL Server also allows this, but Redshift has many more features.

What needs improvement?

Amazon should provide more cloud-native tools that can integrate with Redshift like Microsoft's development tools for Azure. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've only used Redshift a couple of times to do a proof of concept.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Redshift has had some scaling issues, but Redshift's performance overall is excellent. 

How are customer service and support?

We haven't encountered many challenges so far.

How was the initial setup?

Redshift setup is easy. It's not an issue. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate Redshift nine out of 10. If you're thinking about implementing Redshift, I would recommend focusing on the use case. It's a warehouse database, not a transactional system, so they need to plan their workload before migrating to Redshift.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
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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.