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Welcome to the Underground! Ever wanted to know more about the most powerful data processing technology on the planet? Look no further than this foray into the simplest, most effective and easiest-to-implement data appliance that the marketplace has to offer.
This book is an entry-level introduction to the technology and its various applications. Netezza aficionados will find content here that rings true, also some additional stuff that synthesizes industry practices into the appliance domain.
Get some insight into the data warehousing principles that spawned the genius inside the big black box, how to leverage it to meet critical deadlines, and how to put some serious processing juice to work on a large-scale problem domain.
Need some gravity-bending power to shape and mold whole terabytes-at-a-time like they were so much warm cookie dough? Inside are some tricks, tips and opinions on how to make a smooth and clean transition from an underpowered - er - overwhelmed data processing system and into the future of a quietly running appliance - that can inhale and exhale data at scales that will blow your mind.
Okay, enough of the hype. Just crack the pages and get moving. This book is for those who already have a machine (and those who might want to just kick the tires). But keep in mind, once you kick the tires, you'll want one. Maybe two.
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David Birmingham has worked with and around large-scale data systems and massively parallel processing since 1985. An aficionado of various programming languages and approaches, and a seasoned solution architect for both OLTP and data warehousing solutions, he brings this experience to bear on how to leverage the Netezza technology's massively parallel power.
Mr. Birmingham is an internationally recognized speaker and best-practices expert on Netezza. For several years now, he has led the 6-hour Best Practices sessions at the Enzee Universe, with sold-out attendance (over 500 at the 2011 conference). Recently named an IBM Champion, he is a sought-after speaker and presenter, as well as an in-demand solutions architect for Netezza-centric architectures and implementations.
Mr. Birmingham's innovative flow-based architecture for "ELT" - in-the-box data processing using SQL-transforms, has rapidly taken hold as the defacto standard for Netezza deployments because of its resilience, ease of use and maintenance, alignment with the power-physics of the machine and of course, alignment with the best practices of bulk data processing. Read about the architecture in both Netezza Underground and Netezza Transformation, and how to get the most out of the Netezza technology.
This is a very entertaining book, and very nicely written. The author gives some great war stories and anecdotal information about how to avoid problems with any data warehouse implementation. As Mr. Birmingham says in great detail, insufficient testing, poorly structured data and inattention to data quality will ultimately doom any DW project. However, I was a bit disappointed to find that David Birmingham speaks mostly of the consequential pain that comes from inadequate data warehouse performance. As we all know, barring any inefficiencies introduced by the software, performance is primarily a function of the hardware used to run that software. Put another way, software can run slower than the hardware allows, but it can't make inadequate hardware run faster. It's nice to know what can be accomplished if you have adequate hardware, but Mr. Birmingham ultimately fails to demonstrate why Netezza is any better than a properly sized system running RDBMS software products that are more prevalent in the market. Inadequately configured hardware results in over-indexing, widespread use of summary tables, improper use of partitioning and other "tweaks" that make the data warehouse un-manageable. Those are consequences of the hardware configuration issue (and can result in significant pain!), but it's not something that is innate to RDBMS software.
I had lot of expectation about this book because everyone in enzee community talks about it. For some reason this book is very high level and not in detail.
It would have been better with more pictorial representation.
This book has to be the weirdest IT book I've ever read. The structure of the book/index does not make it easy for someone to just pick out a chapter of interest. Also, the flow and the prose....do not cut it for a technical book. Perhaps the author wanted to bring some star trek/star wars into the mix.
In terms of content, I found the book to be rather repetitive. Its almost as if the author wants us to join a cult by drilling the same lines over and over. Yes we know that the box is fast and that the physics make it happen, not the s/w. Had I not read a few slide decks about the platform, I probably would have been lost in many occasions. The content does not progress from basics and further. It is quite erratic and all over the place. The author has many case studies/stories throughout the book. While some were interesting, the majority felt like fluff or repetition. The book can easily be cut in half.
As some other reviews have mentioned, the book could have used more visual depictions/graphs. I would add that more SQL and implementation examples would be useful. Especially when discussing filter tables and avoiding updates to the database (its all about inserts!)
Overall, this was not the technical book I was hoping for...but thats the only thing available at this time...I'll still read the 2nd book in the series "Netezza Transformation". (cant complain since I did not paid for the books.)
One last thing....has the author ever heard of margins? the text runs almost to the edges of the pages and is rather annoying.
