Do we still need relational databases?

[Former Member]

Dears,

will this new in-memory technology reduce the need of a relational database?

There are also rumors about a column-based database... are we talking about the same product?

Thanks,

Federico Biavati

[Former Member]

Hi all,

I think they don't want to sell Oracle databases to the customers (70% of SAP running on it).

• In-Memory (Oracle Times-ten)

• column-based data stores (hybrid-column option in Oracle 11g Exadata)

are features already available for high-end DW or OLTP systems.

I know BWA - but i would not call it a in-memory database - it's only optimized for read-only accesses.

They need the underlying RDBMS to handle the writes tranaction-save (database ACID rules).

They may load the foreign sources data directly into BWA without needing an underlying table - but to be honest:

A SAP ERP or Businesswarehouse contains a lot more tables.

SAP isn't a core technology company by heart - so I don't expect that they want to become one in the future.

Bye

yk

[Vitaliy-R]

Hi YK.

That's the promise of SAP HANA that is going into Ramp-Up soon - it is ANSI 92 SQL and ACID with hybrid (rows+columns) storage. I am talking about the promise, I still need to do my own hands-on with HANA.

SAP is the best to talk about their own identity, but I think they are software company, and any kind of DBMS is still a piece of software, even if it requires for company like SAP to leave their comfort zone of enterprise business applications.

Cheers,

-Vitaliy

[Former Member]

Hi Vitali,

2 things:

1st

It is much more as SQL Ansi and the in-memory stuff.

See the different DB vendors

How they

* handle lock escalation on their DB objects a
* concurrency 
* high availability
* reliable DB recovery and backups

This is a knowledge they had to buy from Sybase - SAP will not invent a new DB relational system

Sybase has a very small customer base wich may grow with SAP installations in the future.

But have in mind: Other DB vendors are technologically spoken more advanced (not only Oracle)

2nd:

Oracle Exadata is not vapor ware as HANA , you can buy since 2008 (first with HP servers now also on Sun systems)

and it's not only adressing in-memory but also intelligent prefetching of OS data blocks via massive parallel systems BEFORE they go into the DB buffer .

Think of IT DB staff: you need expirienced personell for it, not sure if SAP can move Oracle DB staff to Sybase staff

at their customer base (at least not in the U.S.

I think customers will force SAP also to certify the Exadata machine also.

Best breed strategy may go for Exdata on Oracle and SAP ERP/BW

bye

yk

[Vitaliy-R]

Hi Bernd,

If you read about spectrum of feelings in my recent HANA blog post (/people/vitaliy.rudnytskiy/blog/2010/11/03/important-questions-with-answers-about-saps-in-memory-high-performance-analytic-appliance--hana) I am not on hyperoptimistic side, but I am not on ignorance or sceptical side either. As I am not SAP employee, below are my own interpretations of facts made available by SAP during TechEd and future trends.

Re 1: Work on ICE (HANA's in-memory DB) has started long before Sybase was acquired, therefore people from MaxDB (SAP's own long-time RDBMS) were involved in its development. MaxDB has all the features you listed like locks, concurency, B&R, HA etc.

Re 2: At least at the current stage ICE should not be considered as a general-purpose database, but as a in-memory platform for SAP and BusinessObjects products. ICE as the platform features in-memory db, but as well computing engine. That will allow to push logic from SAP applications down to the ICE, something that will not be possible with Exadata. As SAP presented during TechEd: 80% of ERP processing is happening in app.server, and only 20% in db. With Exadata it will be still 20% in db, with HANA more processing from app.layer will be moved to ICE.

Btw, Sybase is #5 database in the world installations - after Oracle, DB2, MS SQL and Teradata, so I would not call it marginal.

Regards,

-Vitaliy

[Former Member]

Adding more thoughts :

HANA is an appliance which has high performance,data replication using worlds best SYBASE technology.

Now there is no need to wait for the ECC data to be loaded or one need not wait for the data to be processed in timely interval.

Data would be readly available in BW systems.Flow is expected to be as ECC>>HANA>>SAP BI 7.3.

Now the question is Would HANA be practical in all the scenarios, there needs to be a toggle switch...what Say..?

Regards,

Rajesh.

[Vitaliy-R]

Rajesh, could you please stop spreading unrealistic and uncovered promises?

[Former Member]

Vitaliy,

Believe it or not !!! it might seem to be non realistic at this moment.

Watch for this space for more>> coming soon two Qr from Now

[Vitaliy-R]

Rajesh, for me seeing is believing. And because I saw HANA, I know what I am talking about. And I expect others to know what they are talking about too. Otherwise it is just a noise that does not help, as I described in HANA blog post:

/people/vitaliy.rudnytskiy/blog/2010/11/03/important-questions-with-answers-about-saps-in-memory-high-performance-analytic-appliance--hana

[Former Member]

Great Blog!!!!

Wish I could see HANA soon to make my Voice & no more Noise...

Cheers!!!

Rajesh.

[Former Member]

i don't think we can call in-memory a product. for now, it's an idea or a concept which starts at the lowest or the most fundamental layer of the architecture - data base. logic and presentation will follow.

in my mind, we don't need ERs and are throwing away 30+ years of primary/foreign key coding.

[esjewett]

Federico,

I think that BWA technology and similar relational database alternatives will reduce the extent to which we feel forced to use relational databases for workloads that relational databases are not well-suited for. OLAP is one example. Many types of analytics and caching are other examples. Hopefully in these areas we'll see less of the "Oracle is the answer, now what's the question?" syndrome.

With regard to the "column-based" aspect of the BWA product, yes, BWA is column-based underneath. Unfortunately SAP is having a tendency to group a bunch of basic architectural approaches that are different from a relational model under the term "in memory". Column-based data storage is one of these approaches and it has absolutely nothing to do with in-memory. Compression (and query execution directly against compressed data, which I'm not sure if BWA supports) is another approach, which again is only tangentially related to in-memory in that it helps to facilitate in-memory by reducing total data volume.

Ethan