Teradata Corporation is a vendor specializing in
data warehousingIn computing, a data warehouse is a database used for reporting and analysis. The data stored in the warehouse is uploaded from the operational systems. The data may pass through an operational data store for additional operations before it is used in the DW for reporting.A data warehouse...
and
analytic applicationsAnalytic applications are a type of business application software, used to measure and improve the performance of business operations. More specifically, analytic applications are a type of business intelligence solution...
. Its products are commonly used by companies to manage data warehouses for
analyticsAnalytics is the application of computer technology, operational research, and statistics to solve problems in business and industry. Analytics is carried out within an information system: while, in the past, statistics and mathematics could be studied without computers and software, analytics has...
and
business intelligenceBusiness intelligence mainly refers to computer-based techniques used in identifying, extracting, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments, or by associated costs and incomes....
purposes. Teradata was formerly a division of
NCR CorporationNCR Corporation is an American technology company specializing in kiosk products for the retail, financial, travel, healthcare, food service, entertainment, gaming and public sector industries. Its main products are self-service kiosks, point-of-sale terminals, automated teller machines, check...
, with the spinoff from NCR on October 1, 2007. Teradata is led by Mike Koehler, the former senior vice president of NCR. Teradata's headquarters are in
MiamisburgMiamisburg is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States. The population was 20,181 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area...
,
OhioOhio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
.
Introduction
Teradata is a
softwareComputer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it....
company, founded in 1979, that develops and sells a
relational database management systemA relational database management system is a database management system that is based on the relational model as introduced by E. F. Codd. Most popular databases currently in use are based on the relational database model....
(RDBMS) with the same name. Teradata was a division of the NCR Corporation, which acquired the Teradata Company on February 28, 1991. Teradata's revenues in 2005 were almost $1.5 billion with an operating margin of 21%. On January 8, 2007, NCR announced that it would spin-off Teradata as an independently traded company, and this spin-off was completed October 1 of the same year, with Teradata trading under the
NYSEThe New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...
stock symbol TDC.
Teradata Enterprise Data Warehouses are often accessed via ODBC, JDBC or
via native supportThe following tables compare general and technical information for a number of available database administrator tools. Please see individual product articles for further information...
by applications running on operating systems such as
Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
or flavors of
UNIXUnix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
. The warehouse typically sources data from operational systems via a combination of batch and trickle loads.
Teradata acts as a single data store that can accept large numbers of concurrent requests from multiple
clientA client is an application or system that accesses a service made available by a server. The server is often on another computer system, in which case the client accesses the service by way of a network....
applications. Significant features include:
- Unconditional parallelism
Parallel computing is a form of computation in which many calculations are carried out simultaneously, operating on the principle that large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which are then solved concurrently . There are several different forms of parallel computing: bit-level,...
, with load distributionLoad balancing is a computer networking methodology to distribute workload across multiple computers or a computer cluster, network links, central processing units, disk drives, or other resources, to achieve optimal resource utilization, maximize throughput, minimize response time, and avoid...
shared among several servers.
- Complex ad hoc queries with up to 256 joins.
- Parallel efficiency, such that the effort for creating 100 records is same as that for creating 100,000 records.
- Scalability, so that increasing of the number of processors of an existing system linearly increases the performance. Performance thus does not deteriorate with an increased number of users.
Technology
Teradata is a massively parallel processing system running a
shared nothing architectureA shared nothing architecture is a distributed computing architecture in which each node is independent and self-sufficient, and there is no single point of contention across the system...
. The Teradata DBMS is linearly and predictably scalable in all dimensions of a database system workload (data volume, breadth, number of users, complexity of queries). The scalability explains its popularity for enterprise data warehousing applications. Teradata is offered on Intel servers interconnected by the proprietary BYNET messaging fabric. Teradata systems are offered with either Teradata-branded
LSILSI Corporation is an electronics company based in Milpitas, California that designs semiconductors and software that accelerate storage and networking in datacenters and mobile networks.-History:...
or
EMCEMC Corporation , a Financial Times Global 500, Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company, develops, delivers and supports information infrastructure and virtual infrastructure hardware, software, and services. EMC is headquartered in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, USA.Former Intel executive Richard Egan and his...
disk arrayA disk array is a disk storage system which contains multiple disk drives. It is differentiated from a disk enclosure, in that an array has cache memory and advanced functionality, like RAID and virtualization.Components of a typical disk array include:...
s for database storage.
In October 2009, CIOZone reported that Teradata would begin using solid state devices (SSD) in a new product to be released in 2010 called the Teradata Extreme Performance Appliance. The data appliance holds about 20TB stored on racks of 300GB solid state drives. The SSDs can produce performance that is 150 times faster than a hard disk drive (HDD). The new appliance can scale from 7TB to 200TB and like other Teradata products, uses Intel's multi-core processors and 64-bit Linux SLES 10 operating system. Because they have no moving parts, SSDs eliminate the risk of mechanical failure that HDDs present and are 50 percent more energy efficient than hard disks. The appliance will take up about seven percent of the data center floor space that a similar data warehouse would require with traditional drives.
Operating system compatibility
Teradata offers a choice of two
operating systemAn operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s:
MicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
Windows Server 2003Windows Server 2003 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft, introduced on 24 April 2003. An updated version, Windows Server 2003 R2, was released to manufacturing on 6 December 2005...
and
SUSE Linux Enterprise ServerSUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a Linux distribution supplied by SUSE and targeted at the business market. It is targeted for servers, mainframes, and workstations but can be installed on desktop computers for testing as well. New major versions are released at an interval of 3-4 years, while...
on
64-bit64-bit is a word size that defines certain classes of computer architecture, buses, memory and CPUs, and by extension the software that runs on them. 64-bit CPUs have existed in supercomputers since the 1970s and in RISC-based workstations and servers since the early 1990s...
Intel servers.
Customers and partnerships
Teradata currently has over 1,000 customers and over 2,500 installations of its RDBMS. One of the largest and most prominent customers are in retail domain like
Wal-MartWal-Mart Stores, Inc. , branded as Walmart since 2008 and Wal-Mart before then, is an American public multinational corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's 18th largest public corporation, according to the Forbes Global 2000...
,
The Home DepotThe Home Depot is an American retailer of home improvement and construction products and services.The Home Depot operates 2,248 big-box format stores across the United States , Canada , Mexico and China, with a 12-store chain...
,
TescoTesco plc is a global grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues and the second-largest measured by profits...
and Supervalu Inc., which run their central inventory, enterprise reporting, category planning and other financial systems on Teradata. Other Teradata customers include companies such as
AT&TAT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
(formerly SBC),
Royal Bank of CanadaThe Royal Bank of Canada or RBC Financial Group is the largest financial institution in Canada, as measured by deposits, revenues, and market capitalization. The bank serves seventeen million clients and has 80,100 employees worldwide. The company corporate headquarters are located in Toronto,...
,
DellDell, Inc. is an American multinational information technology corporation based in 1 Dell Way, Round Rock, Texas, United States, that develops, sells and supports computers and related products and services. Bearing the name of its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest...
,
Morgan StanleyMorgan Stanley is a global financial services firm headquartered in New York City serving a diversified group of corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals. Morgan Stanley also operates in 36 countries around the world, with over 600 offices and a workforce of over 60,000....
, Citibank NA,
PERSHING-Military:* John J. Pershing , U.S. General of the Armies** MGM-31 Pershing, U.S. ballistic missile** M26 Pershing, U.S. tank** Pershing boot, a type of boot used by U.S...
,
Wells FargoWells Fargo & Company is an American multinational diversified financial services company with operations around the world. Wells Fargo is the fourth largest bank in the U.S. by assets and the largest bank by market capitalization. Wells Fargo is the second largest bank in deposits, home...
,
Bank of AmericaBank of America Corporation, an American multinational banking and financial services corporation, is the second largest bank holding company in the United States by assets, and the fourth largest bank in the U.S. by market capitalization. The bank is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina...
, JP Morgan Chase,
Life Insurance Corporation of IndiaThe Life Insurance Corporation of India is the largest state-owned life insurance company in India, and also the country's largest investor. It is fully owned by the Government of India. It also funds close to 24.6% of the Indian Government's expenses. It has assets estimated of...
,
Metro AGMetro AG is a diversified retail and wholesale/cash and carry group based in Düsseldorf, Germany. It has the largest market share in its home market, and is one of the most globalised retail and wholesale corporations. It is the fourth-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues . In English...
,
Lloyds Banking GroupLloyds Banking Group plc is a major British financial institution, formed through the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB in 2009. As at February 2010, HM Treasury held a 41% shareholding through UK Financial Investments Limited . The Group headquarters is located at 25 Gresham Street in London, with...
, Barclays,
Royal Bank of ScotlandThe Royal Bank of Scotland Group is a British banking and insurance holding company in which the UK Government holds an 84% stake. This stake is held and managed through UK Financial Investments Limited, whose voting rights are limited to 75% in order for the bank to retain its listing on the...
, Intel,
CiscoCisco may refer to:Companies:*Cisco Systems, a computer networking company* Certis CISCO, corporatised entity of the former Commercial and Industrial Security Corporation in Singapore...
,
TelstraTelstra Corporation Limited is an Australian telecommunications and media company, building and operating telecommunications networks and marketing voice, mobile, internet access and pay television products and services....
,
OptusSingTel Optus Pty Limited is the second largest telecommunications company in Australia, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications...
, Airtel,
AircelAircel group is a mobile phone service provider in India. It offers both prepaid and postpaid GSM cellular phone coverage throughout India. The Aircel group is a joint venture between Maxis Communications Berhad of Malaysia and Sindya Securities & Investments Private Limited, whose current...
, Coca Cola,
Macy'sMacy's is a U.S. chain of mid-to-high range department stores. In addition to its flagship Herald Square location in New York City, the company operates over 800 stores in the United States...
,
FedExFedEx Corporation , originally known as FDX Corporation, is a logistics services company, based in the United States with headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee...
and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and Teradata also shares over 200 joint customers with
MicroStrategyMicroStrategy, Inc. , is a business intelligence software vendor. MicroStrategy's software enables leading organizations worldwide to analyze the vast amounts of data stored across their enterprises to make more strategic business decisions...
, including
Hudson's Bay CompanyThe Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
,
Metro GroupMetro AG is a diversified retail and wholesale/cash and carry group based in Düsseldorf, Germany. It has the largest market share in its home market, and is one of the most globalised retail and wholesale corporations. It is the fourth-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues . In English...
, and the
USPSThe United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
.
Teradata holds an annual user group conference and
expoA trade fair is an exhibition organized so that companies in a specific industry can showcase and demonstrate their latest products, service, study activities of rivals and examine recent market trends and opportunities...
known as
Teradata PARTNERS with keynote industry speakers, educational sessions led by customers and other vendors, and presentations from BI and analytics vendors.
Teradata University Network
The Teradata University Network (TUN) is a web portal and educational resource for database, data warehousing, business intelligence and decision support systems. It is provided to lecturers, students, and other faculty free of charge. The goal of the TUN is to build a collaborative IT education community at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
MicroStrategyMicroStrategy, Inc. , is a business intelligence software vendor. MicroStrategy's software enables leading organizations worldwide to analyze the vast amounts of data stored across their enterprises to make more strategic business decisions...
, the founding
business intelligenceBusiness intelligence mainly refers to computer-based techniques used in identifying, extracting, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments, or by associated costs and incomes....
partner in the Teradata University Network, allows students and instructors to use its business intelligence software through the TUN. Additionally, MicroStrategy hosts a Teradata server in its in-house laboratory to test software compatibility with Teradata's new releases, creating an integrated technology partnership. Other partners in the Teradata University Network are
KXEN' is revolutionizing the way companies use to make better decisions. Based on patented innovations, the company's flagship product, ', delivers orders of magnitude improvements in speed and agility to optimize every step in the ' – including acquisition, cross-sell, up-sell, retention and next...
, Planners Lab,
TableauTableau Software is an American computer software company headquartered in Seattle, WA, USA. It produces a family of interactive data visualization products focused on business intelligence, and is reportedly anticipating revenue of $30 million to $40 million in 2010.- History :The company traces...
, and the
Sam M. Walton College of BusinessThe Sam M. Walton College of Business is a business college at the University of Arkansas. The college is funded by and named after the founder of Wal-Mart, Sam Walton. The College has its own special tuition and its own Career Development Center...
at the
University of ArkansasThe University of Arkansas is a public, co-educational, land-grant, space-grant, research university. It is classified by the Carnegie Foundation as a research university with very high research activity. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and is located in...
.
Competition
Teradata's main competitors are other high-end solutions from vendors such as
OracleThe Oracle Database is an object-relational database management system produced and marketed by Oracle Corporation....
,
IBMThe IBM DB2 Enterprise Server Edition is a relational model database server developed by IBM. It primarily runs on Unix , Linux, IBM i , z/OS and Windows servers. DB2 also powers the different IBM InfoSphere Warehouse editions...
, and
Sybase IQSybase IQ is a relational database software system used for business intelligence and data warehousing, produced by Sybase.-Features:As a column-oriented DBMS, Sybase IQ stores data tables as sections of columns of data rather than as rows of data...
which is based on a
massively parallelMassively parallel is a description which appears in computer science, life sciences, medical diagnostics, and other fields.A massively parallel computer is a distributed memory computer system which consists of many individual nodes, each of which is essentially an independent computer in itself,...
/
shared nothing architectureA shared nothing architecture is a distributed computing architecture in which each node is independent and self-sufficient, and there is no single point of contention across the system...
. Recent competition has arisen from data warehouse appliance vendors such as
NetezzaNetezza designs and markets high-performance data warehouse appliances and advanced analytics applications for uses including enterprise data warehousing, business intelligence, predictive analytics and business continuity planning....
(IBM is set to acquire Netezza),
DATAllegroDATAllegro was a company that specializes in datawarehousing applicances. It was founded by Stuart Frost in 2003 inspired by and as a competitor to Data warehouse appliance pioneer Netezza...
(acquired in August 2008 by
MicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
),
ParAccelParAccel, Inc. is a vendor in the data warehouse appliance market category. Vendors in this category provide a purpose-built database management system used for data warehousing, business intelligence and analytic processing and, according to Hackathorn and White, there are varying degrees of...
,
GreenplumGreenplum is a database software company in San Mateo, California, specializing in enterprise data cloud solutions for large-scale data warehousing and analytics...
(acquired in July 2010 by
EMCEMC may refer to:In organizations:* EMC Corporation, an information management company* IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility Society, a worldwide professional engineering society* Eastern Media Centre, a television channel in the UK...
), and
Vertica SystemsVertica Systems is an analytic database management software company. Vertica was founded in 2005 by database researcher Michael Stonebraker, and Andrew Palmer; its President and CEO is Christopher P. Lynch. HP announced it would acquire the company in February 2011. On March 22, 2011, HP completed...
(acquired in February 2011 by HP), and from packaged data warehouse applications such as SAP and
KalidoKalido is a software company headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts with offices in the US, London and India.-History:The ideas behind Kalido started in 1985, when the Royal Dutch/Shell Group began twelve years of advanced data-modeling research, involving highly generic models and time...
. These slowed Teradata's penetration into the mid-market and some verticals, particularly energy.
Recognition
Teradata database software is well regarded by industry analysts based on their independent verification of performance against a broad range of competitors. Independent analyst firm Forrester Research in 2009 issued a report, "The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Data Warehouse Platform," by James Kobielus, rating Teradata the industry's number one enterprise data warehouse platform in the "Current Offering" category. Forrester awarded the company perfect scores in 11 categories, including "Professional Services," "Corporate Direction" and "Product Direction."
Marketing research company Gartner Group placed Teradata in the "leaders quadrant" in its 2009 and 2010 report "Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management Systems".
In 2010, Teradata was listed in Fortune’s annual list of Most Admired Companies.
History
Teradata was founded in 1979 by:
- Dr. Jack E. Shemer, President and Chairman of the Board.
- Dr. Philip M. Neches, Vice President and Chief Scientist
- Walter E. Muir, Vice President of Marketing
- Jerold R. Modes, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
- William P. Worth, Vice President of Manufacturing
- Carroll Reed, Vice President of Research and Development
Between 1976 and 1979 the concept of Teradata grew out of research at the
California Institute of TechnologyThe California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
(Caltech) and from the discussions of
Citibank’sCitibank, a major international bank, is the consumer banking arm of financial services giant Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, later First National City Bank of New York...
advanced technology group. Founders worked to design a
databaseA database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...
management system for parallel processing with multiple microprocessors, specifically for decision support. Teradata was incorporated on July 13, 1979, and started in a garage in Brentwood, Calif. The name
Teradata was chosen to symbolize the ability to manage
terabyteThe terabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix tera means 1012 in the International System of Units , and therefore 1 terabyte is , or 1 trillion bytes, or 1000 gigabytes. 1 terabyte in binary prefixes is 0.9095 tebibytes, or 931.32 gibibytes...
s (trillions of bytes) of data.
A beta system was shipped to Wells Fargo Bank in 1983, and a production parallel RDBMS for decision support - the world's first - appeared in 1984.
Fortune magazineFortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest...
named Teradata “Product of the Year” in 1986. Over the next four years channel connections to
IBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
MVS and
UnivacUNIVAC is the name of a business unit and division of the Remington Rand company formed by the 1950 purchase of the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, founded four years earlier by ENIAC inventors J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, and the associated line of computers which continues to this day...
OS1100 mainframes were introduced, and a Teradata system over one
terabyteThe terabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix tera means 1012 in the International System of Units , and therefore 1 terabyte is , or 1 trillion bytes, or 1000 gigabytes. 1 terabyte in binary prefixes is 0.9095 tebibytes, or 931.32 gibibytes...
(a trillion bytes) went live.
In December 1991,
NCRNCR Corporation is an American technology company specializing in kiosk products for the retail, financial, travel, healthcare, food service, entertainment, gaming and public sector industries. Its main products are self-service kiosks, point-of-sale terminals, automated teller machines, check...
, then a division of
AT&TAT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
, acquired Teradata. Teradata split from NCR and officially became Teradata Corporation on October 1, 2007.
In 1996 a Teradata database was the world’s largest, with 11 terabytes of data, and by 1999 the database of one of Teradata’s customers was the world’s largest database in production with 130 terabytes of user data on 176 nodes.
KickfireKickfire, Inc. was an analytic database appliance manufacturer. It was acquired by Teradata in August 2010. The Kickfire appliance utilizes FPGA hardware acceleration techniques for SQL databases.Features:...
, once a competitor, was acquired by Teradata in August 2010.
In December 2010 Teradata acquired
AprimoAprimo is an integrated marketing software and applications company based in Indianapolis, Indiana,USA. The brand, Aprimo is part of Teradata Corporation, based in Dayton, Ohio.Founded in 1998 by William M. Godfrey and Robert W...
for $525 Million.
Teradata acquired an 11 percent ownership interest in
Aster Data SystemsAster Data Systems is a data management and analysis software company headquartered in San Carlos, California. It was founded in 2005 and acquired in 2011.-Products:...
in September 2010.
On March 3, 2011, Teradata agreed to pay an additional $263 million for the remaining ownership interest, net of debt and other expenses.
Utilities
Teradata offers utilities that assists in data warehousing management and maintenance along with the Teradata RDBMS. They include:
BTEQBTEQ is a Teradata utility. BTEQ stands for Basic TEradata Query.-BTEQ – SQL Query Capability:BTEQ, available as part of the Teradata Utility Pack, is a general-purpose, command-based tool that enables users to communicate with one or more Teradata Databases...
, MultiLoad, Teradata FastLoad,
FastExportFastExport is a computer program released by the company Teradata. The program is the reverse of the Teradata FastLoad. FastExport is a utility that exports large data sets from Teradata tables or views to a client system for processing, generating large reports, or for loading data into a smaller...
,
TPumpTPump is a Teradata utility designed to continuously move data from data sources into Teradata tables without locking the affected table. TPump provides near-real-time data into data warehouses. TPump can be used to insert, update, upsert, and delete data in the Teradata Database...
,
Teradata Parallel TransporterTeradata Parallel Transporter is a Teradata load utility, typically used in data warehousing.-Teradata Parallel Transporter:Teradata Parallel Transporter is a parallel multi-function load environment. It provides scalable access to data sources from a single interface using a single SQL-like...
(TPT), SQL Assistant / Queryman, Preprocessor 2 (PP2) and the OLE DB Access Module.
External links