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TELECOMS AND SOFTWARE NEWS
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Sybase's analytic cash cow moos
Madan Sheina
Sybase's analytic cash cow moos
The latest release of Sybase's lightning-quick column-based IQ database platform boasts new tools for data monitoring and management, better security and faster analytic processing. IQ has been a dark knight. The latest IQ 15 release has been one of Sybase's most consistent sellers over the past several years, and is now proving to be a revenue booster during the economic downturn. The resurgence of interest in data warehousing has clearly benefited Sybase's IQ business. There was a time when Sybase didn't know what to do with its legacy database.IQ proves its staying power, but does faster really mean smarter?
When Sybase launched its IQ system over a decade ago, it was a trailblazing product in a nascent column-based analytic database market. Today, column-based is in vogue because it's fast. Information is quickly retrieved from relational columns as opposed to rows, which makes it perfect for 'write once, read many' types of applications such as business intelligence (BI) and analytics - which conversely doesn't make it particularly suitable for operational/realtime BI environments.IQ version 15 will be available at the end of March. Sybase touts it as the biggest upgrade of the software in the last five years, which is more pronounced since the company chose to skip versions 13 and 14 because of their various negative connotations in Western and Asian cultures. Sybase bills IQ 15 as enabling 'smarter analytics', which is perhaps a misnomer, since this release seems to be mainly about improving the speed, performance and manageability of analytic processing. In addition, there is no real embedded BI/analytic intelligence within IQ. Any smarts in the software seem to relate to intelligent query algorithms which, when blended with parallel query processing, deliver faster analysis. Specifically, IQ 15 now boasts greater scalability across commodity-based hardware grids and improved algorithms that further speed up query execution. That's due to a stronger grid architecture that scales IQ to, theoretically, thousands of users - though deployments of that size are rare - and better use of multi-core CPU resources and parallel processing for better query response.Significantly, IQ 15 addresses a perennial thorn in the side of column-based databases: slow data loading when writing data. Sybase claims that IQ 15 can load data across multiple nodes simultaneously, for improved performance in shared-disk, multiplexed grid environments. The upgrade also throws in new utilities that ease management and deployment as well as aid monitoring of the system and improve security, thanks to new Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS)-certified encryption algorithms, Kerberos-based authentication, user-determined passwords and support for IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) standards.IQ could be Sybase's best-kept secret and cash cow
Funnily enough, the IQ release came off the back of a record-revenues fourth quarter for Sybase, topping $300 million. The company finished the year with revenues of $1.13 billion, a rise of 10%. While its iAnywhere mobile systems business continues to shine most brightly, databases are also pulling their weight - up 28% in 2008.IQ, in particular, is turning out to be quite a cash cow for Sybase, particularly during the economic slowdown. The company seems to have retained sales momentum for IQ despite tightening IT budgets and an increasingly competitive column-based database market. In 2008, IQ bagged around 200 new customers, pushing its total user base past 1,500. Notable wins include Vodafone and McKesson. This total is well above the customers claimed by smaller column-based analytic rivals Vertica Systems and Infobright, which together only manage to break three digits.Part of this success could be due to Sybase's attractive pricing - cheaper per terabyte than other column-based analytic database startups like Vertica by a mile. For instance, Sybase charges less per terabyte of data - $18,000 to $20,000 per system - than Vertica, which charges $100,000 per terabyte.However, part of this is also due to recognition that column-based relational analytics provides a viable platform for managing larger volumes of data and faster query performance, especially if it subsequently feeds into BI and analytic applications that help companies tackle topical business issues such as risk mitigation and ensuring compliance.
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