Netezza Corporation, a provider of data warehouse and analytic appliances, announced it has begin shipping a data warehouse appliance with a compact footprint that can power development groups and data marts or serve as a platform for application appliances.
Called the Netezza Skimmer, the appliance is the third in a family of appliances from Netezza, that includes the TwinFin appliance announced in August 2009, and the Netezza Retail Analytic Appliance announced in early January. The Netezza Skimmer appliance employs the same technology as that used in the Netezza TwinFin, as well as a software streaming architecture integrated with Netezza's database accelerator and blade servers.
"Skimmer is a very versatile appliance and meets the needs of both small organizations and departmental applications within large enterprises," Razi Raziuddin, director of product management for Netezza, tells 5 Minute Briefing. "It can serve as a data mart in large organizations and as an edge appliance in larger hub-and-spoke deployments to extend the use of analytics across the enterprise. Customers will also use Skimmer as a test and development system in conjunction with the Netezza TwinFin."
While Skimmer will primarily serve as an analytic data mart or as an edge appliance for small groups of users, TwinFin functions as a higher-level tier in the enterprise, functioning "as the primary EDW itself or as an offload engine to an overtaxed EDW," Raziuddin explains.
Netezza anticipates that partners will leverage the Netezza Skimmer appliance within their offerings to create application appliances. For example, in September 2009, Kalido announced the Kalido KONA Information Appliance - a pre-built and customizable information delivery solution - running on Netezza appliances. Kalido KONA will be offered as vertically oriented appliances for industries such as pharmaceuticals and insurance. "We are also working with other partners in different industry verticals such as retail and telecommunications to build out additional application appliances," Raziuddin says.
For more information about Netezza, go here.