Category Archives: Relational database

Pivotal buys Quickstep Technologies in big data play

Pivotal is acquiring Quickstep Technologies to boost SQL performance

Pivotal is acquiring Quickstep Technologies to boost SQL performance

Pivotal has acquired Quickstep Technologies, a query execution technology developer, for an undisclosed sum. The company said the move could vastly improve the performance of its big data solutions.

Quickstep’s technology was developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison by Jignesh Patel, professor of computer sciences and a team of developers at the school, in part with funding from the US National Science Foundation. It’s a relational data processing engine that incorporates a technology called Bitweaving, which uses various techniques to reduce the number of cycles to evaluate and compute a predicate across a batch of code, the result being a massive improvement in performance when asking a database a question.

Patel is no stranger to the database space. His thesis work was commercialised by NCR when it was acquired by Teradata, and he also co-founded Locomatix, a startup that designed a platform to power real-time data-driven mobile services, which became part of Twitter two years ago.

“In the Quickstep project we have rethought from the ground up the algorithms that make up the DNA of data platforms so that the platform can deliver unprecedented speed for data analytics. It is time to move our ideas from research to actual products,” Patel said. “There is no better home for this technology than at Pivotal given Pivotal’s formidable track record in delivering real value to their customers in big data.”

Pivotal said the technology will be integrated as a new query execution framework for Greenplum Database and Pivotal HAWQ, which it claims will “provide orders of magnitude increase in performance for advanced analytics, machine learning, and advanced data science use cases.”

Sundeep Madra, vice president, data product group, Pivotal said: “Enterprises are seeking ever faster speeds for their data so that they can affect outcomes in real time. Quickstep brings to Pivotal a fresh way of thinking about data, one aligned to new capabilities in hardware and demanding expectations today’s businesses have. We look forward to bringing this technology to our customers, and welcome the Quickstep team to the Pivotal family.”

FairComs Newest c-treeACE Bridges SQL, NoSQL Worlds

FairCom today announced the tenth major edition of its cross-platform database technology, c-treeACE® V10, that introduces the industry’s first Relational Multi-Record Type support for seamless integration between relational and non-relational database worlds.

c-treeACE V10 also delivers features such as new Java interfaces, performance and scalability enhancements, additional platform support, and new replication models. With this latest version come significant performance gains including 30 percent faster transaction throughput, 60 percent faster SQL performance, 200 percent better replication throughput, and 26 percent faster read performance.

“The database market is growing substantially, yet there are many problems plaguing developers today: large data volumes; requirements to reduce data access time; data access requirements from a myriad of new locations, like mobile devices and the cloud; trickier integration; and decreasing budgets,” said Randal Hoff, FairCom’s VP of Engineering. “Engineers tell us they really need technology that enables them to work seamlessly within both the relational and non-relational worlds. In the past, they’ve felt forced to choose one or the other, when, in fact, they realize concrete benefits from both. Our newest c-treeACE gives them the flexibility to enjoy the best of both worlds: high performance data throughput levels that a NoSQL database can provide; and concurrent relational access for ease of data sharing with other parts of the enterprise, including cloud and mobile devices, all at a reasonable price point.”

For more than 30 years, FairCom has provided a unique model to enterprise database developers and ISVs not available from off-the-shelf databases. Its c-treeACE offers the highest levels of tailored configuration and control while simultaneously supporting a variety of non-relational API’s (e.g., ISAM, .NET, and JTDB) along with industry-standard relational API’s (e.g., SQL, JDBC, ODBC, PHP, Python, etc.) within the same application, over the same data. Enterprises such as Federal Express, Microsoft, NASA and Visa have used FairCom technology in mission-critical solutions.

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