The rising stars of big data

Progress today announced the results of a new report that provides a comprehensive look at key trends and emerging technologies in the database ecosystem. With the proliferation of big data and a myriad of new database options, selecting the one best suited for specific business requirements is becoming more challenging, according to a survey of 300 IT and business leaders, analysts, developers and knowledge workers.

Respondents were asked which technologies they are currently using and which ones they plan to implement within the next two years. The Progress DataDirect 2014 Data Connectivity Outlook survey shows that while established vendors still hold significant share, a new set of rising stars – many of them lower-cost alternatives – are emerging in the data source world.

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The Rising Stars in Relational Database Technologies

Not surprisingly, the mature relational database management systems (RDBMS) from Microsoft (SQL Server) and Oracle are the most widely adopted according to the report.

However, the survey projects significant growth for emerging alternatives such as the community-developed MariaDB as well as the SAP HANA in-memory platform, over the next two years.

Rising Stars in Enterprise Data Warehousing

While respondents say Microsoft (SQL Server), Oracle and IBM (DB2) enterprise data warehousing technologies are the most widely deployed, the survey finds the largest future growth in this Big Data segment will come from vendors such as Teradata, Amazon Redshift, Exadata and EMC Greenplum. Amazon Redshift, a fast and powerful high-scale data warehouse service in the cloud, is projected to double in use over the next two years according to the poll.

Rising Stars in Big Data and Hadoop-Based Systems

When it comes to adoption of high-volume distributed file systems, the study found that open-source Apache, with its low cost of entry, is the clear leader being used by more than 45% of respondents. Vendors such as Microsoft (HD Insights) and Cloudera are the next closest competitors to Apache, each being used by more than 20% of the respondents.

Rising Stars in NoSQL, NewSQL and Non-Relational Databases

The brightest star in the constellation of cloud-based data and databases for purpose-built workloads is clearly MongoDB, which is used by 39% of survey participants. A solid second is SQLFire – an in-memory SQL database from VMWare – used by 20% of respondents. Several other databases, such as Cassandra and HBase also were reported to have a definitive presence.

> See also: The silicon dream: Mike Olson tells the story of Cloudera

About the Survey

Progress conducted an online poll of 300 existing customers from small to medium-sized businesses. The respondents were located around the world, with 62% from North America, 17% from Europe, 15% from Asia and 5% from South America. Those responding  held a number of titles including developer, CXO, IT management, architect, line of business leader and project or program manager. 

'Nearly every organisation is in an uphill battle with increasing volumes of data,' said Tony Fisher, vice president of data collaboration and integration at Progress. 'Adding to the complexity are the seemingly endless options for managing and effectively using this information — whether on-premise or in the cloud. Our goal with the Progress DataDirect 2014 Data Connectivity Outlook is to offer a high-level perspective on how businesses are getting actionable insight from their data, based on what customers have implemented or are planning to implement.'

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Ben Rossi

Ben was Vitesse Media's editorial director, leading content creation and editorial strategy across all Vitesse products, including its market-leading B2B and consumer magazines, websites, research and...

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