Our InfiniDB^TM Enterprise Edition analytical database software has been built from the ground up to handle the demanding workloads generated in BI and data warehousing environments.  Here's what it takes to put together a future-proof database platform built to handle your data

• Column-oriented architecture: InfiniDB is architected in a column-based manner vs. a legacy row-based format. This allows InfiniDB to service queries that need to read anywhere from a few hundred GB to many TB’s of information faster than row-oriented databases.

• Multi-threaded design: InfiniDB is multi-threaded and can make use of today’s modern hardware that is multi-CPU/core based. More CPU’s and/or cores allow InfiniDB to increase performance with no application modifications being necessary.

• Distributed MPP operations: Building on its multi-threaded capabilities, InfiniDB Enterprise Edition adds the ability to scale your processing across as many machines as necessary to keep up with your users, data and performance expectations.

• Automatic vertical and horizontal partitioning: Being column-oriented, InfiniDB transparently uses vertical partitioning to store data and only read the needed columns to satisfy a query. But InfiniDB also uses a form of logical horizontal range partitioning that does not require special storage placements or design. Using both vertical and logical horizontal range partitioning allows InfiniDB to reduce I/O in both directions (column and row). Both vertical and horizontal partitioning are automatically handled by the InfiniDB database and require no user intervention.

• High concurrency: InfiniDB’s limits as far as concurrency is concerned are only restricted by the server machine’s capabilities; no theoretical concurrency limit exists.

• High speed data loader: InfiniDB supports traditional insert/update/delete operations, but to load massive amounts of data, a high-speed load utility is made available. InfiniDB’s loader allows TB’s of data to be loaded much more quickly into an InfiniDB database than other traditional methods.

• DML support: In addition to supporting the high-speed bulk loading of data, InfiniDB supports full DML (insert, update, delete) operations as well.

• Transactional support: ACID-compliant transactional support is provided in the InfiniDB database. Transactions can easily be committed or rolled back, and deadlock detection support is also provided to handle conflict resolution.

• Crash recovery: InfiniDB provides for full crash recovery capabilities. In the event of a system crash, InfiniDB automatically maintains data integrity and upon system restart, InfiniDB supports roll forward and back operations to return the database to a consistent state.

• MVCC design: InfiniDB supports multi-version concurrency control (MVCC) or “snapshot read” so query operations are never blocked on a table; a query will always see the data as it existed at the time the query was issued.

• No need for indexing: Because of InfiniDB’s transparent use of both vertical and logical horizontal partitioning, there is no need for indexing. In essence, the data in a column-oriented database is the index. In addition, InfiniDB also automatically maintains a small, important structure called the Extent Map, which is used to reduce I/O. The Extent Map also removes the need for any manual data partitioning.

• Low maintenance: In addition to removing the need to index tables, InfiniDB also doesn’t require other objects such as materialized views and summary tables to achieve fast performance. This helps remove the need for typical database administration maintenance functions as well as cuts down on the complexity of the overall system.

• Logical data compression: InfiniDB uses transparent logical data compression to store data that benefits from being compressed. The end result is storage savings and a smaller data footprint. InfiniDB also reduces storage requirements by not relying on indexing or other objects such as materialized views.

• Alter table support: Columns may also be added and dropped from a table with the ALTER TABLE command, with specialized support for online column additions.

• Performance diagnostics: To help tune performance, InfiniDB supplies monitoring and diagnostic utilities that help a user monitor their database and troubleshoot poorly running SQL.

• MySQL front end: InfiniDB utilizes MySQL for its front end. This allows anyone familiar with MySQL to become immediately productive with InfiniDB. For those not acquainted with MySQL, the learning curve is minimal as MySQL supports almost all ANSI standard SQL operations. Moreover, there are many freely supplied GUI tools from MySQL as well as other vendors that may be used to develop against and administer an InfiniDB database.

Continue reading about the InfiniDB Enterprise Edition MPP Overview >>

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Read the Why Choose a Column Database for Business Intelligence? White Paper >>