The world of data is changing with businesses facing an explosion in information volumes and the need to mine different data sources and data types. As a result, IT departments must adapt to provide value in this changing dynamic while still under pressure to lower spending. Imagine the possibilities of getting a mission critical, enterprise data warehouse platform that can scale to your highest data requirements, that gives you the tools to analyze the data and without needing to break your IT budgets.

Companies have been doing this today with Microsoft SQL Server Data Warehousing solutions. Steinmart, Volvo Aerospace, and Protective Insurance have all migrated from their previous Data Warehouse implementations to the Microsoft solution each saving hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in maintenance and cost of ownership. Analysts have also recognized Microsoft as a leader in the Data Warehouse market today.

Continuing this recent industry momentum, Microsoft delivers major updates to SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse with Appliance Update 3 (AU3) and to Fast Track for SQL Server 2012. Microsoft is also expanding its appliance offerings for mid-market and departmental needs.

  • SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW) Appliance Update 3 (AU3): PDW is a massively parallel processing (MPP) pre-built appliance designed to provide the highest scalability and performance for the most demanding data warehouse needs. PDW appliances are available from HP (as HP Enterprise Data Warehouse Appliance) and Dell (as Dell Parallel Data Warehouse appliance) to scale well beyond hundreds of terabytes. An Appliance Update is a complete refresh on the entire solution including software, hardware, and firmware. This is the third Appliance Update in the last 14 months and includes the following new features:
    • Breakthrough performance with up to 10x improvement over prior releases through the new cost-based Query Optimizer and Data Movement Service.
    • Ability to start small and scale with full- and half-rack appliances; Dell has released a half-rack appliance and the HP half-rack is available in April.
    • Best-in-class manageability with integration to System Center 2012 enabling IT to manage PDW seamlessly with other IT assets using a single pane of glass.
    • Appliances for Midmarket and Departmental Needs: HP Business Data Warehouse was introduced in 2011 as a pre-built appliance for data warehouses up to 5 TB. Dell recently announced the future availability of Dell Quickstart Data Warehouse Appliance based on SQL Server 2012.

  • Fast Track for SQL Server 2012: Fast Track offers guided-build reference architecture configurations that scale up to 95 TB. Reference architectures deliver a pre-tested best practices guide to build the hardware box and setup/tune the software for an optimized configuration. New features include:
    • Latest generation of servers and storage. Partners developing offerings include HP, Dell, EMC, Cisco, IBM, XIO, Nimbus, and Bull. Selected partners will offer new reference architectures utilizing Solid State Devices.
    • Mission critical availability with AlwaysOn to deliver your required 9’s of uptime.
    • Next-generation performance with xVelocity in-memory technologies for 10-100x performance gains over SQL Server 2008 R2.

  • SQL Server 2012: enable customers with a self-build option to deploy departmental data marts and even large data warehouses based on their specific hardware needs. New capabilities include xVelocity for next-generation performance and AlwaysOn for required 9’s of up-time.

This updated data warehousing product lineup features dramatic performance and reliability improvements that are required of a mission critical workload while still retaining the ease of use and cost leadership that you have come to expect from Microsoft. By choosing a Microsoft SQL Server Data Warehouse solution, you will get a mission critical data warehouse platform at the fraction of the cost to acquire, operate and maintain.

We invite you to learn more about the Microsoft data warehousing solutions by: