After years of being led toward Unix systems for their data
warehouses, HP 3000
customers are hearing about a solution that keeps a data warehouse on the
same kind of
platform where their production data resides. The companies spreading the
new gospel are
MPE advocates of some of the longest standing: Adager, Robelle Consulting
and Dynamic
Information Systems Corp. (DISC).
The solution is built around HP's IMAGE/SQL database, which the companies say is just as suitable a choice as anything sold by Oracle and its competitors. HP had been recommending the 3000 as a data warehouse solution in situations where customers had a strong commitment to the platform. But HP's advice was to work with directly with Allbase/SQL instead of IMAGE/SQL, or Oracle on MPE/iX.
The three companies' flagship products instead make up the heart of an Allbase-free data warehouse solution: Adager's product of the same name, Robelle's Suprtool, and DISC's Omnidex. The solution was enabled in some part by the advances in each of the products. Last year Robelle added more sophisticated data denormalization capabilities in an STExport feature of Suprtool. Earlier this year, DISC began to support star schemas -- a method of improving the speed of retrievals more than a hundred-fold. Adager stepped into the data content business for the first time in early 1996 with EXAMINE DATE and CHANGE DATE functionality in its Model Two version.
Data warehouses come in many varieties and designs, but all have these fundamental components: a high performance database, data maintenance tools, data denormalization capabilities and high speed retrievals from massive datasets or tables. The three companies believe their tools give HP 3000 users proven building blocks to create data warehouses without moving to other systems.
If the point of any solution is to simply to get the work done, then data warehousing doesn't need to reside on any platform but the one with the right tools. Adager general manager Rene Woc said some customers have told his company that choosing the default of an SQL database running on Unix or NT leaves behind the HP 3000's unique strengths.
"Popular wisdom might suggest the road to data warehousing requires an average database such as Oracle, Informix or Sybase," Woc said. "But many HP 3000 sites are hesitant to embark upon this path because of the inherent lack of reliability, high cost and steep learning curve. With a marginal investment [in their 3000's disk space and consulting] they can get a new solution from proven products. The users get to utilize their current solution more, and they aren't forced to make an investment in another platform just for data warehousing."
Woc was frank about one part of the solution, the interface between IMAGE/SQL and client-server tools commonly used in data warehousing solutions. That pathway is provided through ODBC connectivity, but database administrators deal with too much complexity while using Allbase's SQL access for TurboIMAGE. Relational style access is probably more reasonable with a third-party ODBC solution that doesn't rely on Allbase, Woc said.
"This solution assumes a direct access to TurboIMAGE, bypassing the Allbase shell," he said. "It's not something they'll be able to utilize through the HP-provided ODBCLink/SE."
Drivers for ODBC read capability which do not need the Allbase shell are available from M.B. Foster Associates (DataExpress with ODBCLink, 800.ANSWERS) and Minisoft (ODBC/32, 800.682.0200). M.B. Foster's solution has the only write-capable solution that skips the Allbase SQL component, until Minisoft's driver gets write capability later this year.
Two of the companies are set up to do the consulting that's often a part of data warehouse startups. DISC already supplies consulting as part of its sales of Omnidex, and Robelle has consulting capabilities to enhance the use of Suprtool, the software that will do the data scrubbing and loading for the data into the star schema designs.
Omnidex, the search engine with the longest history on the HP 3000, has been enhance to fully optimize queries directed at a star schema warehouse through ODBC tools like Cognos' Impromptu, MicroStrategy's DSS, or Business Objects. Customers install Omnidex multidimensional indexes on top of TurboIMAGE databases which have Star Schemas enabled.
The advantage in the all-3000 solution lies in the costs and learning curve, according to the companies in the solution. A package of the Robelle, DISC and Adager tools could easily cost less than the database alone in a "popular wisdom" kind of solution. Subtract the training costs of learning a new platform and customers can come out thousands of dollars ahead by sticking with MPE/iX.
The three companies haven't yet placed the all-3000 data warehouse solution in a customer site. They plan to mine their installed base for the earliest adopters of what some might view as an alternative warehouse.
"With the prices of the software on the 3000, it can provide fair competition against the 9000 and people who sell data warehousing solutions there, especially to those with Oracle," Woc said. "The first stage is increasing the confidence for 3000 owners that they don't have to go out for all these side trips in technology. We'll increase their confidence in whatever their current investment is."