Teradata Virtual Storage “Temperature Aware” Software for Data Warehousing

Teradata Corporation, focused on data warehousing and enterprise analytics, announced the availability of Teradata Virtual Storage, innovative software that virtualizes data storage. Teradata Virtual Storage offers breakthrough capability that enables Teradata customers to add storage capacity at very low cost and to maximize performance to meet the enterprise intelligence demands of business users.

“Developed in the Teradata Labs, the virtualization of data storage allows customers to add larger disk drives to existing Teradata system configurations without the additional cost of adding processing units or nodes and database software. This unique Teradata capability reduces the cost of adding additional storage by as much as 10 times, making it cost effective to meet the ever-increasing demands to store and analyze more data,” said Scott Gnau, head of development, Teradata Corporation. “Unlike other competitors’ capabilities, Teradata Virtual Storage allows system performance to remain high and predictable even as data capacity increases.”

The patented Teradata Virtual Storage, enabled by Teradata 13 Database, is the only database management software to automatically and intelligently manage data placement from a data ‘temperature’ perspective. This built-in intelligence is able to automatically place the most frequently used or ‘hot’ data on the fastest storage units and the least used or ‘cold’ data on the slowest storage units without user or administrator intervention. The proper placement of data supports high-performance access to hot data in support of real time decision making, and provides an automated lifecycle management process as data age or “cool” and migrate to less expensive drives.

“As the needs of customers grow, Teradata Virtual Storage enables them to add significantly more storage to their existing Teradata data warehouse without re-architecting or purchasing a new system. This enables Teradata customers to scale their data warehouse to deliver business value at a lower cost, consistent with the current economic conditions and budget restraints,” said Krish Krishnan, president and chief executive officer, Sixth Sense Advisors.

As the usage of data changes over its lifetime, Teradata Virtual Storage automatically moves the data to the most appropriate storage location. For instance, most wireless communication companies analyze the most recent 90 days of customer detail records (CDR) ‘hot’ data and then store the records off-line, making them less accessible. With the lower cost storage capacity, the CDR records can now be automatically migrated into ‘cold’ data storage on the warehouse after their initial use. In cold storage, they are still on-line and always available for retrieval for historical trend analysis or compliance.

According to Gnau, “The capability of Teradata Virtual Storage is unique in the data warehousing market, because of the ‘temperature aware’ intelligence of the storage software and the ability for automatic migration of data depending on its access patterns or temperature. In addition, the advanced design of Teradata Virtual Storage makes it possible to mix both small and large capacity drives in the same system – and get maximum performance from each. For instance, customers can combine of 146 gigabyte and 300 gigabyte drives to maximize storage and achieve higher performance at a lower cost. In the future, Teradata Virtual Storage will be the flexible framework enabling customers to utilize new and different types of storage devices.”

The adoption of virtual storage will minimize e-waste by extending the life span of older storage arrays because they can be combined with newer and higher capacity storage technology. Customers can easily expand their data storage without substantially increasing energy usage or floor space, because they can mix drive capacities in their system. The under-utilized empty space in the storage cabinets will be put to use without changing the footprint. Teradata enables customers to optimize usage of floor space within the data center.