News

Sun Pitches New Data Analysis Solution

• By Jason Turcotte
• August 9, 2006

A trip to the ballpark isn’t what it used to be; fans want more than peanuts and Cracker Jacks. With Major League Baseball’s fan base more interactive than ever, following two leagues, six divisions, 30 teams and a countless combination of statistics ranging from RBIs to ERAs, MLB.com is one biz calling a new data warehouse appliance a homerun.

Sun Microsystems and Greenplum will soon release an open source business intelligence product powered by the Solaris 10 Operating System and PostegreSQL. Sun’s new “Thumper” Sun Fire X4500 data server will team with Greenplum’s PostgreSQL, Bizgres MPP to provide users with a solution which can scan one terabyte of data per 60 seconds─a speed reps say will enhance performance from 10 to 50 times over existing systems.

Sun expects clients in the telecommunications, financial services, retail and Web services sectors to invest in the solution this year. And Major League Baseball is one of the orgs pining for the product due out later this quarter.

“MLB.com has consistently pushed the limits of technology, in order to support our diverse fan base worldwide,” says Justin Shaffer, SVP of new media for MLB advanced media. “As we collect data about every single pitch, over the course of 2,430 games each year, the power necessary to analyze and make available that data has become incredibly important.”

The appliance offers users a query-in-storage design, moving processing to where the data is stored. It supports the SQL, ODBC and JDBC interfaces, and is powered through the Solaris Operating System, PostgreSQL and Solaris ZFS.

John Fowler, executive vice president of Sun’s Systems Group, says this solution equates to cost and time savings for businesses dealing with big-time data. “The lightning-fast performance of this solution makes it a snap for companies to manage ever-increasing amounts of data on their networks.”

The data warehouse appliance will provide database capabilities of 10, 40 and 100TB. The product starts at $15,000 (per usable terabyte) for the 40 and 100TB systems, and $25,000 for the 10TB model.