While the vendors out there are working to make the maintenance and management of the Data Warehouse appliance easier, here are a few things that I would like to see implemented in any of the appliance technologies.

1. GUI interface - A thin client user interface for technology and user management of the appliance. While it is there in a few appliances, it is not at a level to instill confidence in users. Technologies where this is not available are going to have to get this done as a priority.

2. DBA and Administrator documentation - While the appliance can run on any Linux and Unix platforms, there are additional commands that have been added for the MPP engine integration. Robust documentation on configuration and system administration will be greatly appreciated. Similarly from a DBA perspective, documentation and management gui interface wil be an absolute success criteria.

3. TPC-H benchmarks - I'm not suggesting that every vendor needs to implement a TPC-H benchmark. But doing a TPC-H benchmark will provide the IT user statistics in a decision making process, and provide apples to apples comparison on the platform.

4. Reports - To ensure managability and provide indepth infromation, reports should be made available on disk and cpu utilization, data allocation etc. This will serve as an educational inout and will also provide operations support.