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Teradata has announced enhancements to its database to help organizations achieve extreme query performance for operational and analytical workloads.
The company’s tweaks to the Teradata Database’s hybrid row and column capabilities provide quicker access to data stored on columnar tables, which drive faster query performance for more agile business decisions.
“Teradata developed the industry’s first hybrid row and column database and has now enhanced it, setting a new standard for database functionality,” Dan Harrington, executive vice president of global consulting and support services at Teradata, said in a statement. “Teradata Database’s unmatched flexibility supports organizations grappling with massive volumes of data, more concurrent users and increased demands for better intelligence. This new hybrid capability reduces the amount of data read in wide tables, while preserving pinpoint data access for real-time operational queries.”
Teradata officials said other relational database management systems store data tables in rows or columns, and each method offers unique benefits, depending on the application and type of data. However, they have been mutually exclusive, the company said. Teradata’s new hybrid row and column capabilities allow the best of both worlds.
Teradata has made it possible to pinpoint single-row data retrieval for fast tactical queries, which reduces unnecessary row scanning. In addition, the “update-in-place” technical capability allows data to be updated within the row, without the need to copy the updated information at the bottom of the table, as is common for columnar databases. These technical enhancements improve query performance and storage efficiency, the company said.
For example, telecommunications companies have very wide tables that capture all of the data about each network call in Call Detail Records. With Teradata hybrid row and column capabilities, these wide tables can support analytical queries on different columns for network quality and regional traffic volume analyses, while also offering direct access to a single row for a call center query for customer support.
These enhancements will be available with Teradata Database 15.10 by the end of the second quarter.
Meanwhile, Teradata also announced Teradata REST Services, which offer an agile and easy interface to a Teradata Database from any device for insights that support data-driven decisions. Prior to the availability of Representational State Transfer (REST) services, remote interfaces required a lengthy IT development cycle, software driver installation on devices and ongoing management, Teradata said.
In essence, Teradata REST services can turn a phone, a desktop computer or a custom handheld device into an information portal from the Teradata Database. In addition, Teradata REST services open up the Teradata Database to an expanding set of business applications, not previously available.
Teradata REST services are designed to help customers better run their organizations. They include “track and trace” access from mobile devices to monitor parcel delivery, account status or “incident number” look up for sales or technical support associates and in-store merchandise brand manager access to an operations information dashboard from a handheld device.
“Today’s economy demands that business users have any time, anywhere database access to get the answers they need to manage their organizations,” Teradata’s Harrington said. “Teradata REST services solve the problems associated with remote database access, which normally requires driver software that is intrusive and complicated to manage on diverse and widespread devices.”
Teradata REST services also enable a new generation of applications and Web page development with an easy-to-maintain architecture that enables mobile users to perform database queries. The popular interface architecture allows easier application integration than the previous driver-based model. With the ubiquity of mobile devices, the REST interface has gained widespread acceptance across the Internet as an improved interface with increased agility.
Teradata REST services are currently available as a free download for Teradata Database customers.