IBM Netezza Performance Server Reviews

It is extremely easy to use. The platform is very efficient and robust as well.

Generally, the machine utilized for the PoC is rarely returned once the overwhelming results are seen! Customers decide to keep the project, almost from scratch! The initial KPIs are delivered with low investment. There is quick implementation and considerable outcomes which make the platform a valuable asset to the organization.

Marketing, I dare say, should be improved. The ads should never mention “big data” since the platform was not initially designed for it.

I worked years and years ago with Teradata, and this is the platform to which it should be compared. It is important to emphasize that Netezza and Teradata have different markets. Netezza performs very well “in its peculiar and valuable small world.”

I have used this solution for years.

We did not have any stability issues.

It is not designed to process a huge volume of data.

Technical support is good.

I worked for different companies and my experience is really wide. Teradata is the paramount solution! Oracle’s Exadata invests a lot in both technology and marketing, sometimes losing the focus on “real” analytics. They used to address the platform as both OLAP and OLTP (“one size fits all”), which is not correct.

The rule of thumb in the data warehousing/business intelligence space starts with a simple PoC. That being said, there must be a few questions to be answered by the platform. The data model must be simple and flexible enough to address some “extra questions” within a set timetable, in case the customer wants to extend the PoC prior to making the purchase.

Comparisons with other solutions, including pricing and licensing, is as important as a PoC.

I compared Netezza to Teradata and Exadata.

IBM PureSystems or NPS has a patented NDAC or Netezza data accelerator card inside each of the SPUs (Snippet Processing Arrays). The SPUs act as individual processors that share part of a query. This helps in high-speed parallel processing of big data volumes. Querying a large data volume takes just a few seconds to minutes, if it is done right.

Analyzing years of data requires high processing power and storage. IBM PDA has exactly that. Years of processed data (tables) can be queried and retrieved based on management requirements. This can be done in minutes for analysis. This is extremely important in identifying trends for decision making in higher management, to serve customers better in today’s business environment.

It is a highly complicated architecture and only IBM engineers/support, or someone who worked on the hardware side of the system, can understand the system architecture completely.

This means that:

• Replacements can only be done by an IBM engineer
• Components are not generic and are not on the market
• Many of the systems are IBM patented
• Service support costs are high

Storage, although high, is limited depending on the rack configuration. For example, an N3001-80, which is an eight-rack Mako Server and also the top end model with the highest storage, can store a maximum of 384TB. Should your data exceed this limit, the storage cannot be extended.

It cannot be used for unprocessed data. The data has to be in a table format.

We have been using the solution for five years.

We rarely had stability issues. You may expect an average of one outage every two months for a few minutes, if it is maintained properly. This is mostly due to “pollreplytimeout” errors of the SPU.

All the rack components are dual for redundancy. Almost all components have failsafe/backup, including the host that is configured in cluster for high availability. With this, the system is up and running all the time, or you can get it up at the earliest possible time in case of component failures/system down situations.

We had scalability issues. Storage, although high, is limited depending on the rack configuration. For example, an N3001-80, which is an eight-rack Mako Server and also the top end model with the highest storage capacity, can store a maximum of 384TB. Should your data exceed this limit, the storage cannot be extended. You will have to purchase a new appliance.

I would rate the technical support at 7/10.

We did not use a previous solution.

IBM sets up the NPS and does the initial configurations. As an admin, you will have a completely configured system ready to work on.

This is a multi-million dollar product. The software and hardware are both IBM patented.

Netezza SQL ('nzsql') runs only on PDA systems, and cannot be installed on other enterprise-class servers. Power consumption is high and these systems must have mandatory IBM support, due to the patented and exclusive IBM hardware. However, the benefits outweigh the costs if you have large data volumes that require fast analysis on a day-to-day basis.

We didn't really examine any alternatives. I started working directly on IBM PDA (Netezza) and I haven't had any chance to work on the competitors' products. I was not a decision maker in the selection of this product. This was a higher management decision.

A close competitor of IBM PDA is Apache Hadoop. As of now, no other product is as fast or as stable.

You can definitely consider this appliance if you have:

• A large volume of processed data (tables) that are created on a daily basis
• Data that requires daily analysis, critical for decision making, and a budget to complement it.

This is one of the most stable and fastest data warehouse appliances available in the market today.

I am using IBM Netezza Performance Server for enterprise data.

The most valuable features of the IBM Netezza Performance Server are the NPS server because of the reduced maintenance and overall good performance.

IBM Netezza Performance Server could improve its interface, support for big data, and APA-based connectivity should be available.

I have been using IBM Netezza Performance Server for approximately seven years.

IBM Netezza Performance Server has a very good uptime rate. We do not have a lot of servers crashing, it is a high-availability solution. 

The scalability of the IBM Netezza Performance Server is good.

We have more than 5,000 users using IBM Netezza Performance Server indirectly. We use BI tools, such as Oracle OBIEE vs QlikView which we use to develop reports and these tools connect to IBM Netezza Performance Server.

I have not contacted the support from IBM. However, our team has connected them.

We used a third party to do the implementation of the solution. There were approximately 25 people for the operation and it took approximately eight months.

We have two people who do the maintenance for IBM Netezza Performance Server.

I rate IBM Netezza Performance Server a seven out of ten.

• The ability to load data very quickly
• SQL is 100% ANSI compliant
• Queries run very fast and require no hints (Oracle)
• No space management
• Tuning SQL is generally pretty easy

For every organization that I have been in that has Netezza, the ability to load and run queries is greatly simplified and A LOT faster than any other DBMS out there.

Netezza is just starting on real time integration with Big Insights (big data). Support for interfaces has been poor. Hoping this improves.

I've used it for nine years.

No issues encountered.

Netezza servers used to have disk issues in the early days, however, for the most part this has been addressed.

No issues encountered.

9/10.

9/10.

I have used Oracle and Teradata as a DBA. I have found Netezza to be the easiest in terms of DBA management

Very straightforward. Data movement is very easy. It works better if you do 1 large file as opposed to several small files

Netezza servers are installed by IBM but implementations are sometimes handled in house and for others it maybe a mixture with BI vendors. We are a BI vendor and do implementations.

Most shops I am in have used Oracle, Sql Server, or Teradata. Depending on what the data is being used for (OLTP, OLAP). OLAP is the best application for a Netezza server.

Our use case is, we use Netezza as a data warehouse and for analytics.  

We have sub-second query performance, and users are happy with the product.

Row-secure tables, IBM Fluid Query, and others.

This is an appliance-based product with limited capability. It has all the horse-power that one can imagine and can handle all workloads.

• Distributed querying
• Seamless concurrency
• Fast loading
• High velocity analytics

We now have a single store of critical business metrics in the investment bank.

The query optimization is crap, and the machine could use more alerting around bad design and bad queries.

I've been using it for four and a half years.

Releases from IBM are poorly tested, but once they work once, they’re stable – i.e., the machine only goes down immediately after an upgrade.

Scalability is fixed. It’s big, but not at all scalable.

Moderate. IBM is really good at communicating to us that they take our problems seriously, but they don’t seem to fix them very quickly.

We were saddled with this.

The setup was straightforward.

We implemented it in house. My advice would be to follow the tool, and not try to force a schema designed for another system on it.

We have no ROI. We’re a cost center.

No other options were looked at.

It can run heavy CPU queries really fast, and this is valuable.

We have a lot of “campaign” queries that run for our clinical analytical area and this product seems to work well for them.

While some queries do run very fast, you cannot load up the box with several queries.

We've used TwinFin for over four years and Striper for around one-and-a-half.

It does not scale like other databases and expect them to run at the same time.

Netezza does not scale like other databases, so it cannot run several queries at once.

It's good.

It was pretty straightforward, but we had to get several areas involved in initial setup.

We worked with the vendor to implement it.

It is a pretty expensive solution, but it is worth it for the right environment.

• Zonemap features
• AMPP (SMP+MPP ) architecture
• High availability
• Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs)

The Netezza deployment is easy, and there is less administration and coding than in other databases.

• Correlated queries are not supported.
• Concurrency - the performance dips with number of concurrent queries; for example, if more than 48 queries are run concurrently, it queues up.
• Scalability - if the data increases, you need to go for a bigger appliance as you cannot add to Netezza incrementally.

I've used it for two-and-a-half years.

Some minor SPU communication issues with IP protocol.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

They deliver the products to customers faster and with greater accuracy, i.e. within the agreed-upon due date.

Netezza already had a excellent customer satisfaction and the rating would be 8/10.

We previously used Oracle then migrated to Netezza because its deployment is easy, and there is less administration and coding when compared to Oracle. Also, the query performance is excellent in Netezza.

It is very straightforward because Netezza's initial setup took less than two days and the entire data set was loaded onto the Netezza appliance to which users had full access to the system.

Netezza is an easy-to-use data warehouse appliance. It's extremely fast with a low cost and the customers run their BI and advanced analytics in a very flexible manner.

We also looked at Teradata.

Netezza should have enough advantages with implementation, i.e time to deployment, price, performance, and the ability to integrate with the existing environment.