Data Warehouse in the Clouds

I’ve been hearing and reading a lot lately about “cloud computing”.  Information Week in particular has run several articles on the topic, including last weeks “Guide to Cloud Computing”.  Most of these articles have been about general purpose platforms, with the focus on Amazon, Google, and Salesforce.com offerings getting the most press.

On the surface computing in the cloud looks very similar to the hosted service offerings that sprang up in the mid-90s, led by companies such as Digex.  I believe fundamentally it is, with the exception of well known on-line brands entering the market.  And with the exception of connection speed and reliability, most of the issues are still in play, namely security, performance, and environment change control.  The benefits touted are lower TCO, faster time to market, and solution scalability.

The Data Warehouse in the Cloud (DWC) concept is just starting to take hold, led by such companies as Vertica (in partnership with Amazon).  I can see the benefits of going this route, most notably time to market.  Connection speeds might still be an issue, particularly in the case of large data load files.  And security will always be an issue, particularly with sensitive customer data.  TCO is often presented as a plus for the DWC, but it’s not that straightforward.  Factors such as initial hardware & software costs, data center operational costs, labor, and upgrade costs must all be included in the mix.

In short, the DWC is a viable alternative, particularly for a company with the following characteristics:

• Limited data center resources - hardware and/or operations staff are tapped out, and you’d need to significant capacity to deploy a new data solution
• Deploying a data solution on a “new” platform - you’re an Oracle shop but planning to deploy on Vertica
• Dispersed users - your user base is geographically spread out, and access corporate systems is through a variety of network channels
• You’re a mid-sized company and don’t have access to volume hardware and software discounts

But remember, it’s like leasing a car.  You never get rid of that payment.

This entry was posted on 3. July 2008 at 17:29 and is filed under Technical Focus, Vendors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.