Helena Schwenk, Exasol’s Market Intelligence Lead, has been digging into The Forrester Wave™: Cloud Data Warehouses, Q1 2021. This blog unpicks the report findings and highlights why we were named a strong performer among the top 13 vendors in this vibrant category.
Cloud data warehouses are changing the way businesses deliver modern analytics. A well-architected data warehouse not only serves as a platform for basic queries and reports but can also advance the organization’s analytical capabilities and provide a platform for innovation.
As more data shifts from on-premises to the cloud, companies are adopting public cloud for reasons that go beyond access to cost effective technology to one that is also driven by value creation. As such, cloud data warehouses need to reach beyond technical capabilities, such as scale and elasticity, toward more rapid innovation through faster cycle times and use of AI/ML. They need to move from simply supporting cloud data warehouses towards supporting the analytics practices that rely on them – including business intelligence (BI), Loading...data science and real-time analytics.
That’s why we’re excited that Exasol has been named a strong performer in the recently published The Forrester Wave™: Cloud Data Warehouses Q1 2021, a report that provides an assessment of the top 13 vendors in this vibrant and evolving market.
Performance
There are a couple of highlights worth mentioning. Forrester’s product evaluation mentions Exasol’s performance, as we received the highest scores possible in the criteria related to performance reference. This complements evidence from BARC’s 2020 Data Management Survey, in which 100% of surveyed users chose the Exasol Database because of its performance.
Performance is a foundational capability of a cloud data warehouse, but it’s what you do with it that really matters. Greater performance means you can support many more business users accessing your most important data, you can find insights from that data faster, or design dashboards with your users in real-time.
Exasol uses a full range of accelerators to achieve its blazingly fast performance, including an Loading...MPP architecture, Loading...in-memory technology, column-oriented storage, compression, and self-tuning capabilities that actually create indices on-the-fly – a feature unique to us. Our technology essentially runs on its own, delivering exceptional performance which means there’s less need for maintenance and an army of database admins.
Multi-cloud
We also know that not every business can move all its data to the public cloud. Especially if it’s invested in on-premises infrastructure or has sensitive data needs. Which is why we support hybrid and multi-cloud alongside public cloud deployments, to ensure the necessary flexibility our customers need.
On top of these technology capabilities, cloud data warehouses need to deliver business value and drive intelligent decision-making. Exasol’s data science/ML capabilities were also scored in the report based partially on our customers’ feedback. We believe the value gained comes not only from cloud deployment but from the flexibility of doing advanced Loading...in-database analytics, so ML models run fast enough for users to directly access them in dashboards like Tableau and MicroStrategy. Running models in minutes rather than days is of significant business benefit for the likes of ecommerce giant and Exasol customer Otto.
Multi-use
In addition, the ability to support a wide range of use cases for the cloud data warehouse is critical. Exasol received the highest scores possible in the vertical use cases criterion, having deployed across all 10 categories listed. We were among the highest scores in the support criterion, which we believe highlights our customer obsession and complements other analyst studies – including BARC’s 2020 Data Management Survey, where we were rated number one for support quality, and our best-in-class rating for technical support in Dresner’s 2021 ADI Market Study.
So, thank you to our customers, our community members, and our partners for contributing to Exasol’s success. We’re always encouraged by the creativity, ambitious spirit and generosity you show.