Big Data Database for 2013 is MPP and Graph Databases

Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) reports on the 2013 momentum of MPP/analytics and graph databases with real-time processing and complex analytics.

Despite Oracle’s attempt to push SPARC, all the other big data analytics databases were either designed to take advantage of Intel multi-core processors and the lowering cost of memory, or are being back-fitted to do so, or wrapped in appliances that at least emulate “database on a chip” to some degree. This trend shows no signs of abatement for 2013, and new database versions will march out better leveraging core/memory, resulting in yearlong game of “my database is faster than yours for big data.” And with good reason: As big data analytics shifts from batch to real-time, from a nice-to-have to a must-have, the delivery of complex analytics results in as short a time as possible will gain in desirability. Therefore, ESG believes that the database primarily designed for analytics will increase the gap over more general use-case databases. Those MPP and graph analytics databases, at least in the enterprise, will gain share in 2013. Speaking of Oracle, despite their memory/core optimized engineered systems, ESG believes Oracle will either need to up its investment and profile of the Oracle NoSQL database, or make a technology acquisition to offset the analytics-focused competition. IBM may be in the same situation—some of its non-purely-relational offerings have grown long in the tooth, and they may have to bet on a latter generation analytics database through acquisition. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Column Store, however, will likely receive more channel education, push and press for big data use cases; in the MISO oligopoly (Microsoft, IBM, SAP, Oracle), MSFT and SAP are under less pressure to address big data database technology, but certainly Microsoft needs to do a better job of getting the word out.  

Keywords:  ESG • nosql • Oracle