IDS Forum

Re: Data warehouse: RedBrick vs IDS

Posted By: Kern Do
Date: Friday, 25 July 2014, at 10:55 a.m.

In Response To: Re: Data warehouse: RedBrick vs IDS (FREDERICK HO)

Thank you Fred!
You're so informative!

> On Jul 25, 2014, at 10:43 AM, "FREDERICK HO" <hof@us.ibm.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Prior to IDS 11.7, the answer would be Red Brick, hands down. That's
> simply because IDS was not designed for data warehousing, like the fact
> that Red Brick was never designed for OLTP.
>
> Red Brick was the first commercially available data warehouse product
> on the market. The Red Brick company was originally founded by Ralph
> Kimball, who invented the concept of dimensional modeling, which remains
> today the de facto standard for designing data warehouses. The key
> features that Red Brick has are:
>
> - Star schema support throughout, i.e. Star Index, Star Join (using the
> zigzag method)
>
> - Target and bitmap indexes
>
> - One pass loader, i.e. tables and indexes are ready to use after data
> loading - no need for deferred index build
>
> - Pre-computed view (i.e. MQT in DB2) aka. summary tables with advisor
> based on run-time stats (vs. schema based advisor)
>
> - Versioning, i.e. trickle feed, for real-time warehousing
>
> - Rule-based Optimizer (vs. cost-based optimizer in IDS)
>
> - Built-in OLAP functions (prior to SQL-OLAP becoming a standard)
>
> All these features provide superb performance "out of the box" with
> very simple setup, e.g. a single Star index on the fact table would
> provide very adequate performance.
>
> Starting with IDS 11.7, a number of the key features listed above were
> implemented in IDS (using some code from XPS, a MPP-based data warehousing
> product developed mostly in Portland, as part of Informix). Since then,
> IDS has comparable performance for queries requiring star-join, bit-map
> indexing (in the form of multi-index scan, though indexes are not
> materialized). However, IDS still does not have summary tables, versioning
> or a one-pass loader.
>
> Starting with 11.7xC3, you may be aware of a product called Informix
> Warehouse Accelerator (IWA). I won't repeat all the features that come
> with this product, as there are plenty of articles that describe this
> product (or read the blog listed below). Suffice to say that IWA is built
> using "modern" technology in that it is an entirely in-memory database
> that will outperform standard disk-based systems by over 100x.
>
> The fundamental difference between the two approaches is that Red Brick
> was built during a period where "smart indexing" with Star Schema was key
> to its simplicity and performance. (Red Brick sales folks would routinely
> tell an Oracle shop that Red Brick is 10x over Oracle in performance and
> proceeds to prove it to them). Technologies like IWA use technologies
> (i.e. compression, multi-core cpus and SIMD instructions) to scan data and
> do predicate evaluation very efficiently. The combination of IDS for OLTP
> data and transparent acceleration of warehouse/analytic queries makes for
> a very compelling combination (not to mention other IDS features like HA,
> etc).
>
> If you need more info, feel free to contact me or the IDS team
> directly.
>
> Fred Ho
>
> Program Director
>
> Chief Technologist - Informix Warehouse
>
> IBM Corporation
>
> Blog:
> https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/fredho66/?lang=en
>
> Tel. 408-956-2422
>
> Tie Line - 475-2422
>
> email: hof@us.ibm.com
>
>
> *******************************************************************************
> Forum Note: Use "Reply" to post a response in the discussion forum.
>

Messages In This Thread

• Data warehouse: RedBrick vs IDS
  Kern Doe -- Thursday, 24 July 2014, at 1:45 p.m.
  • Re: Data warehouse: RedBrick vs IDS
    FREDERICK HO -- Friday, 25 July 2014, at 10:43 a.m.
    • Re: Data warehouse: RedBrick vs IDS
      Kern Do -- Friday, 25 July 2014, at 10:55 a.m.

IDS Forum is maintained by Administrator with WebBBS 5.12.