{"id":2913,"date":"2012-11-20T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-20T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/dataplatforminsider\/2012\/11\/20\/oracle-surprised-by-the-present\/"},"modified":"2024-01-22T22:49:28","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T06:49:28","slug":"oracle-surprised-by-the-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/sql-server\/blog\/2012\/11\/20\/oracle-surprised-by-the-present\/","title":{"rendered":"Oracle Surprised by the Present"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019d like to clear up some confusion from a recent Oracle-sponsored blog. It seems we hit a nerve by announcing our planned In-Memory OLTP technology, aka Project \u2018Hekaton\u2019, to be shipped as part of the next major release of SQL Server. We\u2019ve noticed the market<\/a> has also been calling out Oracle on its use of the phrase \u2018In-Memory\u2019, so it wasn\u2019t unexpected to see a rant from Bob Evans, Oracle\u2019s SVP of Communications, on the topic. [Editorial update: Oracle rant removed from Forbes.com on 11\/20, see Bing cached page 1<\/a> and page 2<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Here on the Microsoft Server & Tools team that develops SQL Server, we\u2019re working towards shipping products in a way that delivers maximum benefits to the customer. We don\u2019t want to have dozens of add-ons to do something the product, in this case the database, should just do. In-Memory OLTP, aka \u2018Hekaton\u2019, is just one example of this.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth mentioning that we\u2019ve been in the In-memory game for a couple of years now. We shipped the xVelocity Analytics Engine in SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services, and the xVelocity Columnstore index as part of SQL Server 2012. We\u2019ve shown a 100x reduction in query processing times with this technology, and scan rates of 20 billion rows per second on industry-standard hardware, not some overpriced appliance. In 2010, we shipped the xVelocity in-memory engine as part of PowerPivot<\/a>, allowing users to easily manipulate millions of rows of data in Excel on their desktops. Today, over 1.5 million customers are using Microsoft\u2019s In-memory technology to accelerate their business. This is before \u2018Hekaton\u2019 even enters the conversation.<\/p>\n

It was great to see Doug from Information Week<\/a> also respond to Bob at Oracle, and highlight that in fact Oracle doesn\u2019t yet ship In-Memory database technology in its Exadata appliances. Instead, Oracle requires customers to purchase yet another appliance, Exalytics, to make In-Memory happen.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re also realists here at Microsoft, and we know that customers want choices for their technology deployments. So we build our products that way, flexible, open to multiple deployment options, and cloud-ready. For those of you that have dealt with Oracle lately, I\u2019m going to make my own prediction here: ask them to solve a problem for you and the solution is going to be Exadata. Am I right? And as Doug points out in his first InformationWeek article<\/a>, Oracle\u2019s approach to In-memory in Exadata is \u201ccache-centric\u201d, in contrast to which \u201cHekaton will deliver true in-memory performance\u201d.<\/p>\n

So I challenge Oracle, since our customers are increasingly looking to In-Memory technologies to accelerate their business. Why don\u2019t you stop shipping TimesTen as a separate product and simply build the technology in to the next version of your flagship database? That\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do.<\/p>\n

This shouldn\u2019t be construed as a \u201cknee-jerk\u201d reaction to anything Oracle did. We\u2019ve already got customers<\/a> running \u2018Hekaton\u2019 today, including online gaming company Bwin, who have seen a 10x gain in performance just by enabling \u2018Hekaton\u2019 for an existing SQL Server application. As Rick Kutschera, IT Solutions Engineer at Bwin puts it, \u201cIf you know SQL Server, you know Hekaton\u201d. This is what we mean by \u201cbuilt in\u201d. Not bad for a \u201cvaporware\u201d project we just \u201cinvented\u201d.<\/p>\n

As for academic references, we\u2019re glad to see that Oracle is reading from the Microsoft Research Database Group<\/a>. But crowing triumphantly that there is \u201cno mention<\/i> of papers dealing with in-memory databases\u201d [your emphasis] does not serve you well. Couple of suggestions for Oracle: Switch to Bing; and how about this VLDB paper<\/a> as a starting point.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, it\u2019s customers who will choose from among the multiple competing In-memory visions on offer. And given that we as enterprise vendors tend to share our customers, we would do well to spend more time listening to what they\u2019re saying, helping them solve their problems, and less time firing off blog posts filled with ill-informed and self-serving conclusions.<\/p>\n

Clearly, Oracle is fighting its own fight. An Exadata in every data center is not far off from Bill\u2019s dream of a \u201ccomputer on every desk.\u201d But, as with Bill\u2019s vision, the world is changing. There will always be a need for a computer on a desk or a big box in a data center, but now there is so much more to enterprise technology. Cloud, mobility, virtualization, and data everywhere. The question is, how can a company called \u201cOracle\u201d be surprised by the trends we see developing all around us?<\/p>\n

— Nick King, Senior Marketing Manager, Server & Tools<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019d like to clear up some confusion from a recent Oracle-sponsored blog. It seems we hit a nerve by announcing our planned In-Memory OLTP technology, aka Project \u2018Hekaton\u2019, to be shipped as part of the next major release of SQL Server.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1457,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","_classifai_text_to_speech_error":"","footnotes":""},"post_tag":[],"product":[],"content-type":[2445],"topic":[],"coauthors":[2487],"class_list":["post-2913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","content-type-thought-leadership","review-flag-1593580427-503","review-flag-1593580414-58","review-flag-1-1593580431-15","review-flag-2-1593580436-981","review-flag-5-1593580452-31","review-flag-alway-1593580309-407"],"yoast_head":"\nOracle Surprised by the Present - Microsoft SQL Server Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/sql-server\/blog\/2012\/11\/20\/oracle-surprised-by-the-present\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Oracle Surprised by the Present - Microsoft SQL Server Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019d like to clear up some confusion from a recent Oracle-sponsored blog. 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