Terabytes to the max
IF THE PRESS releases are any indication, there seems to be a heady competition among database vendors these days to see which can build the biggest, baddest database ever.
Take IBM, which announced this winter that in partnership with EMC and Oracle, it had built the world's largest single-system data warehouse -- 82 terabytes of deal-sealing proof that it could protect British Telecom on the customer playground. The system sounds pretty hefty. After all, it could hold enough information to fill three-drawer file cabinets lined up from Miami to Seattle.
But that's not so tough, say the folks at NCR, who lay claim to the world's largest data warehouse in operation. Wal-Mart's data warehouse (for the record, it uses parallel architecture rather than single-system) could hold a whopping 101 terabytes, enough to stuff those file cabinets from Miami to Juneau, Alaska. And Wal-Mart is just one of 166 customers with systems exceeding a terabyte, a spokesperson says. "NCR is the only company with more than 100 data warehouses of 1 terabyte or greater on a single platform."
Jabs back IBM: "IBM now counts 187 customers with more than a terabyte of data, eclipsing NCR's."
Of course, as everyone knows, size isn't everything. The volume of data actually stored is more significant, says Richard Winter of Waltham, Mass.-based Winter Corp. Toward that end, Winter Corp. will announce this month new winners of a contest for the world's largest database. Visit www.wintercorp.com.
» posted by ITworld staff
CIO
Symantec Backup Exec 12 and Backup Exec System Recovery 8 deliver industry leading Windows data protection and system recovery. Download this whitepaper to find out the top reasons to upgrade and how to get continuous data protection and complete system recovery.
Data and system loss — from a hard drive failure, malicious attack, natural disaster, or simple human error — can happen anytime. Don’t leave your business vulnerable. Make sure you have a secure recovery strategy in place. Symantec's latest backup and system recovery technology can efficiently restore critical applications, individual emails and documents and even restore your entire system in minutes in the event of a loss.
Businesses face a growing challenge to ensure that the IT environment is properly protected. Backup Exec 12 integrates with other applications in the Symantec family of products, to complement your current data protection strategy, keep your data securely backed up and make it recoverable when you need it most.
