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IBM Netezza Performance Server vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.1
IBM Netezza Performance Server boosted productivity, reduced costs, and enhanced business intelligence, achieving positive outcomes and high returns.
Sentiment score
7.3
Azure Cosmos DB's ROI varies with benefits in scaling and maintenance but challenges in cost and complexity affect outcomes.
Getting an MVP of that project would have taken six to eight months, but because we had an active choice of using Azure Cosmos DB and other related cloud-native services of Azure, we were able to get to an MVP stage in a matter of weeks, which is six weeks.
You can react quickly and trim down the specs, memory, RAM, storage size, etc. It can save about 20% of the costs.
When I have done comparisons or cost calculations, I have sometimes personally seen as much as 25% to 30% savings.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
IBM Netezza's customer service is prompt but technical support response and cost affect satisfaction, leading to variable ratings.
Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers good customer service, though support delays and inconsistent quality are noted, with strong community assistance.
Technical support is very costly for me, accounting for twenty-five to thirty percent of the product cost.
Premier Support has deteriorated compared to what it used to be, especially for small to medium-sized customers like ours.
The response was quick.
I would rate customer service and support a nine out of ten.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.1
IBM Netezza Performance Server faces scalability issues with appliance limitations, effective for set operations but not individual tasks.
Sentiment score
7.9
Azure Cosmos DB offers dynamic scalability and efficiency, ideal for diverse environments with adjustable resource settings and robust architecture.
It is provided as a pre-configured box, and scaling is not an option.
The system scales up capacity when needed and scales down when not in use, preventing unnecessary expenses.
We like that it can auto-scale to demand, ensuring we only pay for what we use.
We have had no issues with its ability to search through large amounts of data.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
IBM Netezza Performance Server is stable with minimal outages, relying on proper query design and offering effective IBM support.
Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers reliable 99.95% uptime, with strong stability, scalability, and seamless integration despite minor challenges.
We have multiple availability zones, so nothing goes down.
Azure Cosmos DB would be a good choice if you have to deploy your application in a limited time frame and you want to auto-scale the database across different applications.
I would rate it a ten out of ten in terms of availability and latency.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM Netezza needs better scalability, concurrency, integration, query optimization, monitoring, and reduced costs to overcome growth and usability challenges.
Users of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB experience challenges with query complexity, pricing, integration, indexing, UI, APIs, and documentation.
The cloud version is only available in AWS, and in the Middle East, it is not well-developed in the Azure environment.
We must ensure data security remains the top priority.
You have to monitor the Request Units.
The first one is the ability to assign role-based access control through the Azure portal for accounts to have contributor rights.
 

Setup Cost

IBM Netezza Performance Server is costly yet valuable for enterprises needing robust analytics, scalability, and built-in redundancy.
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB pricing, seen as expensive, offers scalable reliability with a complex RU model but allows cost optimization.
Initially, it seemed like an expensive way to manage a NoSQL data store, but so many improvements that have been made to the platform have made it cost-effective.
Cosmos DB is expensive, and the RU-based pricing model is confusing.
Cosmos DB is great compared to other databases because we can reduce the cost while doing the same things.
 

Valuable Features

IBM Netezza Performance Server provides fast data processing, easy management, and enhances analytics with high performance and low maintenance.
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB excels in scalability, global distribution, multi-API integration, and usability, with robust performance and flexible data management.
It operates as a high-speed data warehouse, which is essential for handling big data.
The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is its real-time analytics capabilities, which allow for turnaround times in milliseconds.
Performance and security are valuable features, particularly when using Cosmos DB for MongoDB emulation and NoSQL.
The performance and scaling capabilities of Cosmos DB are excellent, allowing it to handle large workloads compared to other services such as Azure AI Search.
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Netezza Performance Server
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (11th)
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (6th), NoSQL Databases (3rd), Managed NoSQL Databases (1st), Vector Databases (3rd)
 

Featured Reviews

Shiv Subramaniam Koduvayur - PeerSpot reviewer
Parallel data processing streamlines operations while cost and cloud integration challenge adoption
The cost of the solution is on the more expensive side, which is a concern for me. Additionally, its promotion and interaction with cloud applications are limited. The cloud version is only available in AWS, and in the Middle East, it is not well-developed in the Azure environment. For the cost to be reduced, it should match competitors. Many features need to be incorporated on the cloud.
MichaelJohn - PeerSpot reviewer
Very efficient for application-facing scenarios
There are several areas for improvement. Firstly, having a local development emulator or simulator for Azure Cosmos DB would be beneficial. It would be very handy to have a Docker container that developers can use locally. Although, I know there is a free tier and so on and so forth, having a local environment would be nice. For example, SQL Server is very portable. You can even install it on your machine. That is the number one thing that is missing in Azure Cosmos DB. The second improvement area is the IDE of choice. That means how you interact with Azure Cosmos DB. For example, with SQL Server, you have SQL Server Management Studio. I know there is a little bit of support for Azure Cosmos DB in Azure Data Studio, but it is not heavily advertised or it does not feel like first-class citizen support. Developer experience or developer tooling is missing in terms of interacting with the database. Better developer tools or an IDE for interacting with Azure Cosmos DB would enhance the developer experience. Lastly, there is some mixed messaging about what Azure Cosmos DB is, given its multiple APIs. There are so many Azure Cosmos DB APIs available. There is NoSQL. There are MongoDB, Gremlin, and others. There is still some mixed messaging for others who are new to Azure Cosmos DB about what Azure Cosmos DB is. Is this like MongoDB, but then there is also MongoDB in Azure Cosmos DB? I know it well, and I know that the default one is just NoSQL, but others I have interacted with over the last ten years or so get confused.
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Comparison Review

it_user232068 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 5, 2015
Netezza vs. Teradata
Original published at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/should-i-choose-net Two leading Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) architectures for Data Warehousing (DW) are IBM PureData System for Analytics (formerly Netezza) and Teradata. I thought talking about the similarities and differences…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
73%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
3%
Insurance Company
2%
Legal Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Netezza Performance Server?
IBM Netezza Performance Server is a cost-effective solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Netezza Performance Server?
The solution has a yearly licensing fee, and users have to pay extra for support.
What needs improvement with IBM Netezza Performance Server?
The cost of the solution is on the more expensive side, which is a concern for me. Additionally, its promotion and interaction with cloud applications are limited. The cloud version is only availab...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
The initial setup is simple and straightforward. You can set up a Cosmos DB in a day, even configuring things like availability zones around the world.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
Its pricing is not bad. It is good. We have a contract with Microsoft to use their technology. In my opinion, Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is a good option for the total cost of ownership.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
I think Cosmos DB enhanced the benefits of NoSQL databases, offering query flexibility, partition management, and backup and restore options. These aspects are crucial, and perhaps improving the co...
 

Also Known As

Netezza Performance Server, Netezza
Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Seattle Childrens Hospital, Carphone Warehouse, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Battelle, Start Today Co. Ltd., Kelley Blue Book, Trident Marketing, Elisa Corporation, Catalina Marketing, iBasis, Barnes & Noble, Qualcomm, MediaMath, Acxiom, iBasis, Foxwoods
TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Netezza Performance Server vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.