Data Warehouse Technologies: an Architectural Comparison

Overview Netezza overcomes the limitations of traditional architectures adapted for data warehousing with a unique approach that delivers orders of magnitude improvements in performance, affordability and ease of use. The Netezza Performance Server® system is a data warehouse appliance designed specifically for powering complex ad-hoc analysis of terabytes of dynamic, detailed data. In delivering 10-50 times the query speed at half the cost of competing solutions, Netezza allows companies to do the types of detailed analysis that previously would have been impossible or cost prohibitive. This paper compares the architecture of the Netezza Performance Server (NPS®) appliance to other existing data warehouse technologies. It addresses the inherent limitations of traditional architectures that result in bottlenecks when processing complex queries on enormous quantities of data, examines the methods used by some well-known vendors and it shows how Netezza’s approach is fundamentally different, from the affordability of its data warehouse appliance to the lightning speed of Intelligent Query Streaming™ technology.