Informix Red Brick Warehouse State Of Technology Rob Totin Frank Lopinto Joe Carr

Informix Red Brick Warehouse

State Of Technology

Rob TotinFrank LopintoJoe Carr

Global Business Environment

Unprecedented dynamicsConstantly changing market conditions

Particularly E-CommerceExponential growth in the quantity,

complexity and scope of dataNeed for better knowledge

management and analytical capabilities

Get In Front Of The Business Intelligence Curve

Red Brick Warehouse Empowers Business with smart solutions for: data warehouses-open relational

databases web warehouses-web traffic analysis analytic data marts- “any question, of

any data…Fast!”

INFORMIXDecision Frontier Solution

Red Brick WarehouseProven time-to-market advantagesSpecialized server technologyOptimized for:

• analytical data mart solutions• complex queries• fast load performance• high-capacity / high-performance processing• efficient management of very large databases

The Red Brick Advantage An Independent Analysis

In 1998, Red Brick Warehouse released version 5.1, claiming that it was the fastest and most scalable relational database for data warehousing, data marts, OLAP and data mining.

The Red Brick Advantage

Skeptics agreed that relational databases worked fine for data warehouses and data marts,

However, they questioned the use of relational databases for OLAP and Data Mining, believing that: special functionality was needed for data

mining and OLAP needed multidimensional modeling to

drill around various dimensions


Red Brick Warehouse version 5.1 has three components: Database serve - designed to support

databases of 500Gb plus Load subsystem - transports data,

checks referential integrity and updates indexing in one integrated run

Gateway technologies - for client / server access


Other design advantages: Uses compressed indexes to reduce

storage Query partitioning for optimal parallelism Multiple join algorithms to overcome

performance problems Uses “hybrid” index types to mix column

domains RISQL to simplify repetitive DSS queries


Red Brick Data Mine Option - for OLAP and data mining: The Red Brick premise is: “take the

mining tool to the data instead of taking the data to the mining tool

Red Brick integrated a neural network, decision trees and statistical algorithms into the core of the RDBMS server to allow data mining directly on the Red Brick Warehouse database


Red Brick Data Mine Option Users can create multidimensional

models that appear as tables When data is entered , calculations are

performed and results are stored in model tables

Tables can be “mined” using RISQL Tables can be created using GUI-based

tools or extended SQL statements


The Red Brick Data Mine approach to OLAP and Data Mining: saves considerable time in data extraction,

transformation, shipping and loading data minimizes redundant storage of data reduces administrative processing by

consolidating security and admin tasks mappings between OLAP and warehouse

data are defined in the metedata


New Features in Red Brick Warehouse 5.1 Red Brick Vista - enhancements to

manage and process aggregate queries for life cycle management

Aggregate Advisor - can audit selected aggregates and compare estimated gains to actual system usage to calculate cost formulas for each aggregate. This allows DBAs to choose which aggregates to create


New Features (cont.) Transparent Query Rewrite - analyzes

complex SQL queries and transforms the queries to use the appropriate stored aggregate. Allows administrators to edit aggregation strategies without affecting existing applications.

SQL- Backtrack - supports online, incremental and parallel backups.


New Features (cont.) Table Management utility - a parallel

loader which loads aggregates automatically when a base table is updated

Red Brick Warehouse Administrator -a GUI-based tool to control data warehousing tasks, especially focusing on segmentation and partitioning.


LIMITATIONS All queries limited to 8k on row size of

intermediate and final result tables

Important because:• Joining large descriptive columns from the

dimension tables to a wide fact table could exceed this limit


LIMITATIONS The database server has a default stack

size of 5MBImportant because:

• The server will fail if it runs out of stack space

• This may be problematic for data mining operations


INDEPENDENT CONCLUSIONS Red Brick Warehouse’s designs are

aimed at providing:any data warehouse queryof any complexityas fast as possible on very large data warehouses


INDEPENDENT CONCLUSIONS Red Brick Warehouse caters to large

data warehouses:in data loading and indexingadministrative controlsbackup and recovery facilitiesall of which promote a high degree of

parallelism


INDEPENDENT CONCLUSIONS The Red Brick Warehouse approach

to OLAP is uniquewith OLAP functionality built into the

relational database servermost OLAP venders view as a specialized

area needing a multidimensional servertaking OLAP function to the data saves

considerable data duplication and upload/reload processing

Red Brick Warehouse Background

1990 - First release of Red Brick Warehouse

Based on “Star Schema” developed by Ralph Kimball

Quickly gained support in the field of data warehousing and data mining

Company fell on hard financial times in 1998

Red Brick WarehouseThe buy-out

Informix, Inc., a world-wide player in the high-end OLTP market begins negotiations with Red Brick in the Fall, 1998

By year-end, the deal was done, with Informix, Inc. paying $35 million for Red Brick Warehouse

Informix officials were tight-lipped about intentions for Red Brick

Informix / Red Brick WarehouseWhat the deal did for Informix

gave Informix much stronger data warehousing capabilities

gave Informix new decision-support and data movement capabilities

gave Informix superior data warehouse talent

gave Informix significance presence in key markets

gave Informix the “best in class” in data mart technology

Informix / Red Brick Warehouse

Between Then and Now January, 1999 -Informix officials make it clear

that Informix will continue to provide separate support for its two flagship products, Informix Dynamic Server and Red Brick Warehouse

July, 1999 - Informix CEO, Dexmier, says Informix/Red Brick will focus on the Internet as a revolutionary new market for business intelligence. Soon to be introduced are new Red Brick products, i.reach and i.sell, tools to analyze web-based traffic.


Between Then and Now August, 1999 - introduces Red Brick

Decision Server for advanced analysis of click-stream data. It supports variable-length character strings allowing storage of URLs while minimizing disk space use. Informix is positioning Red Brick to provide data warehousing and data mining of web traffic.

Informix / Red Brick WarehouseBetween Then and Now

August, 1999 -Beating all previous results, Red Brick Warehouse, on a SUN platform, loaded, queried and scaled a data warehouse to more than 300GB of raw data with up to 600 concurrent users.Table loading at 14GB/hour was 2.3 times faster

than prior testsSimulated an environment of 63 stores, 19,000

products, 3.6 million transactions/day and 35 promotions

The data warehouse included two fact tables and five dimension tables


Where Red Brick Warehouse is Today Informix will not bury Red Brick Warehouse

in its offerings of Informix products Informix intends to leverage the name

recognition and reputation of Red Brick Warehouse to the fullest extent possible

Informix markets Red Brick Warehouse as “an integral piece of Informix Decision Frontier Solution Suite”


Conclusion The global business environment is changing

at an unprecedented rate The quantity, complexity and scope of data is

growing exponentially Business must stay in front of the business

intelligence curve This is why Informix / Red Brick Warehouse

should be the choice for business critical data marts and data warehousing

Documents

Informix Red Brick Warehouse State Of Technology Rob Totin Frank Lopinto Joe Carr