So did you hear the latest news from my blog? Netezza is back in an on-premises format. And the latest news in the Netezza story is that Netezza is on Cloud.

Netezza is now available in a public cloud-based version (first on AWS and soon on Azure) and the story truly fulfills that true hybrid data platform story like no other data platform.

On prem appliance = AWS cloud = Azure Cloud = IBM Cloud

Now that we have the capability to deploy high performance and compute data warehouses anywhere, the question is: where do we deploy? And the myriad of questions such as: What part of the data estate? What tier of the solution? What environment? Where can we deploy disaster recovery? These questions are applicable for modernizing Netezza, converting from Netezza or converting to Netezza.

So how will you know how to, where to and most importantly why you would design and architect a solution that meets the end data consumer needs, complies with governance and security postures, provides all the benefits of the new platform, while utilizing legacy and heterogenous data estates?

Like most things, the solution requires some analysis, some diagnostics and a great practitioner with experience. It has new benefits, features and methods, with also a deep experience with data and all of the legacy platform sources and approaches that you migrated from.

The analysis will be specific to the needs of the organization. Is this for modernization and preparing for the next data-based solution? Is this to refresh older hardware or software? Is this to take advantage of cloud first? Is this being planned to take advantage of variable scale in the cloud (scale up and out)? Is this move to provide cost savings? Or many other reasons why.

Based on analyzing how the solution will be used, our highly skilled practitioners like to do a deeper dive than most solutions and organizations on the benefits and cost concerns:

The concern with some of the sales tactics we see with other solution manufacturers is that they interview a few people and ask a few questions on usage, patterns and demand. They don’t use any systemic diagnostics and therefore are not design based on facts.

However, we like to use multiple diagnostic tools to assess what you have, how it has been used, what the actual demand on the system is, and where the peaks and valleys of consumption are. In other words, we analyze facts.

We felt that this is the only way to actually understand where the current solution sits, how it performs and meets or misses the current requirements. After reviewing all of the data, we prepare a description of the proposed requirements, current usage, and proposed future state to meet and address.

Said another way – if you visited your doctor and asked for advice and she only asked a few questions and then prescribes an expensive, risky and complicated therapy, you would probably not accept the recommendation. If that same doctor asked you to go through exhaustive diagnostics to assess your total health and then made that recommendation, she and you would be much more confident in the outcomes and sure in the solution.

This is what we are seeing in the market when we see claims “Solution X” will replace Netezza on prem tried and proven for pennies on the dollar. And it turns out that these claims are not met with reality. Something too good to be true – and usually is.

Now if you read the fine print (something we always do on software agreements like the last Facebook update – right?) consumption, usage, demand and load can now be stuff off, managed use when you need to clean up after yourself, and the costs don’t include getting data into or out of the system - it just stored state and fast access. Or may favorite “some of the queries will need to be optimized to take advantage of the new cloud architecture”. When I read that I hear the clients’ legacy data integration and reporting that connect to this platform will have to be rebuilt or query costs will be through the roof.

Now I am not saying the solutions that compete against Netezza are not good at certain use cases and even outperform in some areas. However, I am saying that you either know how solid the Netezza platform is by having used it or we could very easily prove this to you. And an offer to equate the simplicity, performance and uptime for a fraction of the costs do need to be critically examined.

To restate and summarize:

1. We are passionate about this platform and want to share this passion with you.
2. We want to help you appropriately evaluate the workloads current and planned to determine how to apply Netezza or if another platform is the right fit for you.
3. We like to be sure and like to use diagnostics instead of surveys.
4. Our recommendations come through experience and our questions will ask you to consider the whole data estate and the platform that supports it.

If this sounds like where you are in your analytics journey and you want to be more sure, please reach out and we can set up a conversation and determine if engaging with us to examine and diagnose your system would be appropriate.