XtremeData, a provider of large data analytics and complex computing solutions, showcased the dbX 100 Series of desk-side analytical data warehouse appliances at TDWI in Chicago. Leveraging the Cray CX1 desk-side supercomputer, the new product line is intended to provide super computing price/performance for business intelligence (BI) analysts and statistical researchers in an affordable departmental-sized system package. Designed specifically for the unconstrained analysis and exploration of large data sets, the dbX family of appliances is unique among competing products in leveraging the best of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) Linux server offerings, while seamlessly integrating SQL acceleration, according to XtremeData.
The new product, the dbX 100 Series "is really the first desk-side data warehouse appliance," Geno Valente, vice president of sales and marketing, XtremeData, tells 5 Minute Briefing. "It is about 17 inches high, 12 inches wide and about three feet long. It literally sits next to your desk. It runs off office power, and it has built-in noise cancellation." Where a rack and stack Linux cluster would not fit, "now what dbX desk-side does is allow the data and analytic tools to be co-located and put in a place that is in the hands of the power user," Valente says. This can help to alleviate a struggle that often exists between analytic workgroups and the IT departments, Valente explains. Business users seek unrestricted access to data and want to be able to bring in and out data sets quickly to see if there is statistical value in that data, while IT has a different charter, to keep the business running, he notes. "You get this conflict between what we call ‘operational BI' and ‘strategy analytics.' "
dbX 100 Series is a fully-integrated "appliance," incorporating all the components of an analysis system: storage, computing, interconnect network and database engine. The system eliminates the labor costs incurred in configuration, integration, and performance tuning, resulting in quick deployment, low cost and a minimal risk development path. All methodology, processes, and analytic queries developed on the dbX 100 Series will automatically scale to XtremeData's larger dbX 1000 Series system to accommodate petabytes of data.
The dbX desk-side appliance is "a solution that 100 statisticians or power users can be using. It has seven-and-a-half terabytes of user data on it, so a substantial amount of data, and it gives them their own environment to load and unload data sets into, to run their statistical tools, and really takes the burden of creating a new data mart every time there is a new business problem. It makes IT's life a lot easier," says Valente.
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