Gartner released the updated quadrant for DW DBMS software and appliances. DATAllegro seems too far below Netezza in ability to execute. DATAllegro has large, proven installations. Their recent releases run on Dell blades with EMC storage instead of the customized FPGAs of Netezza. And how is Greenplum rated higher than DATAllego? (via DBMS2)
Every day, the Economist site adds an original chart.
I just can’t get enough of the Gapminder software, officially called Trendalyzer. The easy interface is just an enhanced scatter plot but it does the job perfectly. I think a lot of people, like me, were amazed and excited by his talk at TED 2006. He demonstrated that analytics offers real insight and improves efficiency. Now there are more “Gapcasts” to enjoy.
I highly recommend browsing the Wiki that has been put up at UC Berkeley’s EECS dept to complement it’s original white paper (also excellent). It’s hard to predict the future applications of massively parallel systems, but we know it will be a giant evolutionary leap. They see multi-core as 2-32 processors and many-core as hundreds and thousands of cores. Intel is already experimenting with an 80-core system that they pledge will be shippable in 5 years. 64-bit quad-core is already available for about $300. I’m still amazed by that much power for so little cash.