I wondered here how IBM would position DB2 with BLU versus Netezza. Please have a look before you go on… and let me admit here and now that when I wrote this I chickened out. As I sat down this time I became convinced that I should predict the end of Netezza.
Why?
In the post here Bob Picciano, the general manager of IBM’s Information Management Software Division, made it nearly clear. He said that DB2 BLU is for systems “under 50 terabytes” only because BLU does not cluster. I suspect that if IBM converted all of the Netezza clusters with under 50TB of data to BLU it would knock out 70% or more of the Netezza install base. He states that “most data warehouses are in the under-10-terabyte range”… and so we can assume that Netezza, precluded from anything under 50TB, has a relatively small market left. He suggests that Netezza is for “petabyte-size collections”… but as I suggested here (check out the picture!), Hadoop is going to squeeze the top away from Netezza… while in-memory takes away the bottom… and IBM is very much into Hadoop so the take-away will not require a fight. Finally, we can assume, I think, that the BLU folks are working on a clustered version that will eat more from the bottom of Netezza’s market.
We should pay Netezza some respect as it fades. When they entered the market Teradata was undisputed. Netezza did not knock out the champ but, for the first time, they proved that it was possible to stay in the ring… and this opened the market for Exadata, Greenplum, Vertica and the rest.