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Under the radar Business Intelligence/Open Source Startup Vertica

Want to know more about still "under the radar" company Vertica? They reportedly will be bundling their product with Linux-based hardware, hence a big open source connection, and they're selling a "column-oriented" database that they claim yields serious speed and flexibility benefits.

You could go to their website and sign up to get a peek at their whitepaper, online demo, benchmarks and even (possibly) access to the beta version of their software. But I'm losing patience with companies requiring me to register with them just to get a bit of information about what they sell. Is it really necessary for them to collect so much required information just to show me their white paper?

Anyway, Vertica was founded in 2005 by Michael Stonebreaker, so they're for real, and if I wasn't so lazy, I'd register on their site and read the white paper and tell you all about it.

But you can get a pretty good overview, along with opinions and other information provided by tech people who aren't affiliated with the company, from the Slashdot article: Database Bigwigs Lead Stealthy Open Source Startup.

And you might find helpful the original Network World article, New database company raises funds, nabs ex-Oracle bigwigs.

  Posted by Pete Loshin on March 14, 2007 7:00 AM |

Comments

I registered and downloaded the stuff from Vertica. The only thing I'd add is that the original product was based on C-Store, a column oriented open source database. They have assembled a pretty high-octane team so I expect they are going to make a splash.

I can't really divulge what's in the material because I had to sign an NDA to download it, but I think it's pretty impressive. I have some doubts about column-oriented databases in general (fast at constrained queries at the expense of updating and loosely constrained queries), but Sybase IQ seems to have overcome many of these. But IQ has been around almost 15 years if memory serves.

About the registration, I too share your feelings about having to provide lots of personal information to get a white paper. On my site, you can download any of the 30 or so whitepapers I've written, plus articles and presentations with no registration at all. I don't think it's worth it. To my way of thinking, the more people read my stuff, the better off I am in the long run, from a marketing perspective. And if it's worthy, it will get a hearing.

-NR

Posted by: Neil Raden | March 20, 2007 9:31 AM

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