Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM Netezza Performance Server vs SQL Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Netezza Performance Server
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (12th)
SQL Server
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
266
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

IBM Netezza Performance Server and SQL Server aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. IBM Netezza Performance Server is designed for Data Warehouse and holds a mindshare of 4.0%, up 4.0% compared to last year.
SQL Server, on the other hand, focuses on Relational Databases Tools, holds 22.0% mindshare, down 23.0% since last year.
Data Warehouse
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Shemal Gandhi - PeerSpot reviewer
A cost-effective data warehousing tool, but security features like TDE encryption are missing
The solution's maintenance is quite easy. One person is enough to maintain the solution. If you are using PostgreSQL as a database solution, then using IBM Netezza Performance Server is the logical choice since it is based on open-source Postgres. However, if you are using Oracle, data conversion can be tricky. So, in that case, you want to go ahead with Exadata. Overall, I rate IBM Netezza Performance Server a seven out of ten.
AhmadTalha - PeerSpot reviewer
A robust and secure solution that helps to store data
The GUI needs improvement. From a technical perspective, it's quite complex, which may not be a problem for individuals with technical backgrounds like ours, especially since we've encountered similar interfaces. However, navigating the GUI can be challenging for newcomers or product owners without technical experience. For example, as someone transitioning from a developer role to a product management role, I find it relatively easy to use the GUI. But for those without a technical background, it's much more challenging to grasp what's happening.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We are able to execute very complex queries. Over 90 percent of our query executions are one second or less. We do millions of queries everyday."
"The data governance prospect... from what I've seen, that is a really powerful tool as well, to help with data lineage and keeping track of that."
"The most valuable features of the IBM Netezza Performance Server are the NPS server because of the reduced maintenance and overall good performance."
"Distribution concurrency control."
"IBM Netezza Performance Server is a cost-effective solution."
"The underlying hardware that IBM provides with this appliance is made for a specific purpose, to serve performance on a large amount of data, and to do analytics as well. It is faster, when you compare it to any other product."
"The benefit is really because of the additional speed that we have and, truth be told, the more updated ETL processes and the revamped scheduler in general."
"The performance is most important to me, and it helps our ability to make business decisions quickly."
"SQL is stable."
"The features that we have found the most valuable are reliability, availability perspective, and current scalability."
"It's more user-friendly than most databases."
"If you need to, you can scale the solution very easily."
"It's great that the nodes are synchronized so if you lose one it automatically moves to another."
"We have found the solution valuable because we are able to easily create a query, shrink, backup, and make new tables."
"Scalability, cluster ability, ease of use, ease of implementation — these are all great."
"The backups are excellent."
 

Cons

"IBM Netezza Performance Server could improve its interface, support for big data, and APA-based connectivity should be available."
"Oracle Exadata's security features, like TDE encryption, are missing in IBM Netezza Performance Server."
"Our main problem with it is concurrency. When there are too many users running Netezza at the same time, this is when we have the most complaints."
"In terms of features that I would like to see, one is the ability to actually scale out an architecture. Right now, if you buy one, it's fixed. There is no scale-up availability at all."
"Concurrency limit needs to be increased somewhat."
"The only issue is that it's not expandable."
"We are not able to scale. The only way to scale is to get another appliance, but we have a customers who would need us to hydrate the data between the two appliances, and Netezza does not do that."
"LIke Teradata, we can’t add a node/SPU to the existing appliance."
"The solution could improve by having better integration."
"It's difficult to make changes. It's a very complicated product in general — that's the issue."
"I would like to see SQL Server add the ability to write to multiple sites or support replication between multiple sites at the transaction level."
"There should be more security updates for the product."
"The solution needs to be more secure. It's lacking, compared to, for example, Oracle."
"One stability issue I encountered was the deadlocking between calls to the same resources (tables, etc.). That was solved by row versioning."
"CAL licenses should cost less. Microsoft usually prices high for client access licenses. Server plus user client access license (CAL) licensing requires a separate Server license for each server on which the software is installed, plus a user CAL for each user accessing the server."
"We need it to support Linux for better troubleshooting flexibility."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Netezza is a costly solution. It does serve a specific purpose but it's costlier than what's available in the market, if you go to the cloud."
"The pricing is very expensive. It has a lot CPUs with a lot of components in it. It also has built-in redundancy for resiliency reasons."
"The solution has a yearly licensing fee, and users have to pay extra for support."
"The SQL server is affordable. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"I don't need a license for it as I will be migrating to Office 365."
"This solution is available at a much lower price point than Oracle."
"The licensing is on an annual basis."
"We're looking at alternative solutions because we think Microsoft's licensing costs have been expensive."
"We pay per second of usage, but there are different offerings of the license."
"Its price is fine. You have to buy the license and support."
"We are on a monthly subscription and the price could improve. However, the price has worked out well in some deployments. The problem is you never know what kind of services been installed and you have to be in touch with many people, such as which servers are active or which are not. I did face a couple of issues in terms of subscriptions and the pricing model. They have improved over time."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Warehouse solutions are best for your needs.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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%
Educational Organization
49%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

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?
Oracle Exadata's security features, like TDE encryption, are missing in IBM Netezza Performance Server.
Would you say the price of SQL Server is high compared to that of similar products?
SQL Server is fairly priced because it has various editions, depending on the number of users, servers, or core packs you are using. If you compare the product to others in this category, the price...
Has using SQL Server helped your organization in any way?
SQL Server has helped my organization through partitioning to distribute the workload, as it splits them up into smaller pieces so the machines can easily deal with it. However, this comes with a h...
Which authentication mode is best for SQL Server?
My company connects through SQL Server authentication. We have company Windows accounts, but we do not want to connect the two, out of security concerns and to keep things separated for our own pur...
 

Also Known As

Netezza Performance Server, Netezza
Microsoft SQL Server, MSSQL, MS SQL
 

Learn More

 

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
Microsoft SQL Server is used by businesses in every industry, including Great Western Bank, Aviva, the Volvo Car Corporation, BMW, Samsung, Principality Building Society, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario.
Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake Computing, Oracle, Teradata and others in Data Warehouse. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.