Today, Microsoft’s
SQL Server, Oracle, Informix, DB2, Sybase, Postgress and MySql are some widely
used DBMS software. Although all of the above are database software, yet each
differs from one another especially in set-up, performance tuning and troubleshooting.
In today’s world, data forms the most valuable source of information asset
for an organization. Businesses are highly dependent on IT for day-to-day operational
and strategic decisions and churn out huge volumes of operational data every hour.
That is when it becomes information. Information has become an asset and organizations
need to maintain and manage their information to facilitate decision-making and
comply with various regulatory requirements. “In order to manage and maintain
the information, a robust, reliable serving infrastructure is essential, where
databases play the critical role. In essence, database is the underlying foundation
for applications in the data center, be it core banking or ERP or CRM applications,”
says Mr. T. Srinivasan, Vice-President, India Sales, Oracle India.
According
to Gartner, in 2008, the Indian DBMS market was worth around $194 million and
is expected to grow by 20% in 2009 over 2008. It expects the Indian DBMS market
size to reach $233 million in 2009.
According to a Forrester Research
report, the open-source database market stands at $850 million and is expected
to grow by more than 40%, to $1.2 billion, by 2010. Though small in comparison
with the $16 billion commercial database market, it is still a significant feat
considering most open-source databases carry no licensing costs.
To achieve
effective data management and improve operating performance, CIOs must adopt a
solution that addresses the following three elements:
· Consolidation:
Means matching, normalizing, cleansing, and storing data imported from client
systems.
· Harmonization: Ensures that data is synchronized across
heterogeneous system landscapes. Extending the scope of data consolidation, harmonization
also encompasses the distribution of consolidated, globally relevant information,
and the enrichment of client application systems with locally relevant information.
· Central Master Data Management: Speaks to the maintenance and storage
of master data and the development of distribution mechanisms for delivering master
data to the systems that need it.
The ideal solution integrates seamlessly
with an organization’s existing infrastructure and their partners. Additionally,
the solution is intelligent enough to ensure ongoing harmony of accurate and up-to-date
information from disparate sources and is readily accessible to ensure it supports
the needs of the entire business ecosystem.
Indian DBMS Market
The size, growth, and sheer desire to gain a competitive edge lured global DBMS
vendors to India. They have opened offices, signed local partners, and translated
their software – and they are finding success. Driven by the inherent need
for businesses of all kinds to manage their information, Indian database management
system (DBMS) software vendors support customers in a wide variety of markets.
“From an Indian market perspective, there is still a long way for all vendors
to go. The market potential still has a significant amount of spread to increase
market-share,” says Anil Menon, Country Manager, Software Group Channels,
IBM India/South Asia.
Oracle Corporation, IBM Corporation, and Microsoft
are the leading DBMS vendors.
Oracle
Oracle is the market leader
worldwide in the RDBMS space with 48.6% market share, according to Gartner report
in 2007 which is based on software revenues. According to Gartner, Oracle –
· has 48.6-per cent share (up from 47.9 per cent in 2006) growing
at 14.9 per cent
· is growing faster than the market average of 13.3
per cent with US$8.29 billion in revenues
· continues to hold more
market share than its two closest competitors combined.
Some of the advantages
of Oracle’s latest version of database are that:
§ The solution
is available on all Operating systems like Windows, Linux and Unix.
§
The technology is easy to install, configure and manage.
§ The database
is pre-configured for production usage, complete with automated space, storage
and memory management, automatic backup and recovery and automatic optimizer statistics
management.
§ Oracle Database also supports all standard relational data
types, as well as native storage of XML, Text, Documents, Images, Audio, Video
and Location data.
§ Oracle database uses the same proven concurrency
techniques as Oracle Database Enterprise Edition, ensuring maximum throughput
for all workloads. It has built-in Real Application Cluster as when the database
is run on a cluster, a workload is automatically balanced across the available
machines, ensuring maximum hardware utilization. Clustering an environment with
Real Application Clusters also protects business applications from system outages.
“Companies across several industry segments have chosen Oracle software
over the last few years, Indian companies across manufacturing, retail, pharma,
financial services, education, BPO/IT-enabled services and other industries have
selected Oracle Database over other similar products available in the market to
power their critical business applications. Telecom is one of the verticals, where
we are currently focussed on. 80% of banks and 90% of key telecom companies use
Oracle technology,” says Mr T. Srinivasan.
IBM
Clients,
especially in economic situations like the one we are facing today, look to companies
like IBM who have stood the test of time and have continued to deliver client
value. “We help clients across geographies come out stronger from a slowdown
with our innovation and smart technologies that help protect IT investments and
use New Intelligence to better our clients value-propositions,” says Mr
Anil Menon.
Competitive advantage today requires more than superior productivity
and cost efficiency. Smart organizations worldwide are beginning to get a sustainable
competitive edge by unlocking the business value of their information.
“Only IBM has the end-to-end capabilities to help a company manage its data
and content, pull together trusted information that cuts across diverse silos,
and also gain valuable insights to optimize its business,” says Mr Anil
Menon.
August 19, 2008 was a world-record-breaking day for DB2, when it
became the first database to break the 1 million tpmC (transaction rate) barrier
on an x86-64 processor. DB2 also produced a new price/performance record by becoming
the first-ever sub-$2.00 $/tpmC result for any vendor posting over 1 millions
tpmC on any server. With this new result, DB2 now holds the top three price/performance
results for any TPC-C (Transaction Processing Performace Council) result over
1 million tpmC. These top three price/performance results were achieved on different
servers, demonstrating the ability of DB2 to perform while saving money on any
platform.
In June 2008, DB2 delivered a record-breaking TPC-C Benchmark
result on IBM Power that surpassed Oracle Database's best result at that time
on an HP Superdome by 49% using 1/2 the number of processor cores.
When
DB2 outperforms another vendor's database product, it means that DB2 can typically
run on less expensive CPU hardware and enjoy better performance. Of course, this
not only saves the expenditure on hardware, it can also potentially reduce the
amount spent on software licences, software maintenance, and software support.
DB2 publishes a broad spectrum of benchmark results to provide the information
needed to make an informed decision. We are proud of the outstanding results we
have achieved across virtually all the industry standard benchmarks. They cover
a variety of hardware providers including IBM HP, Sun, and others running on IBM,
Linux, Windows, Solaris, HP-UX, and additional operating systems. DB2 benchmarks
consistently demonstrate:
· Strong support for transactional applications
(e.g. TPC-C and other partner applications)
· Strong support for data
warehouse and analytic applications (e.g. TPC-H and many partner applications)
· Strong support for both industry standard benchmarks (TPC) and application
partner benchmarks
· Broad hardware platform support
· Broad
operating system support, including Linux, UNIX, and multiple versions of Windows Sybase
has also announced that it would offer free licences of its Eclipse-based database
development tool, WorkSpace, with the upcoming release of Adaptive Server Enterprise
(ASE) 15.0.3. This is good news for Sybase customers as they will be able to use
WorkSpace Database Development for ASE and SQL Anywhere for free through 2009.
Go-to-Market Strategy
Global DBMS vendors started to venture
into the Indian market with strong technology and capital advantage. As a result,
they grabbed a considerable part of available market share by partnering with
local service providers, distributors, and Value-Added Resellers (VARs).
In India, Oracle does business through its partners. More than 80% of the Oracle’s
business is done through partners. There are more than 540 channel and alliance
partners in India under the Oracle PartnerNetwork. Oracle PartnerNetwork is a
global business network of more than 20,000 companies who deliver innovative software
solutions based on Oracle software. “Through access to Oracle's premier
products, education, technical services, marketing and sales support, the Oracle
PartnerNetwork programme provides partners with the resources they need to be
successful in today's global economy. Oracle has opened Partner Solution Center
in our Gurgaon facility (one of four centers in the Asia-Pacific region),”
says Mr. T. Srinivasan,.
Some of Oracles’ partners in India include:
Wipro, TCS, Infosys, Path Infotech, Sonata Software, Tech Pacific, Eastern Software,
New Generation Consultants, Chain-sys India Pvt. Ltd., OSI Consulting, Filix Consulting,
Accel Frontline, Systems Plus, Systime, KPIT Cummins, Conacent Consulting, and
Bluestar Infotech.
IBM is marketing its entire e-business suite around
its DB2 database. IBM offers competitively priced data warehouse solutions designed
to help companies of all sizes analyze and use information to make better decisions.
“We are committed to delivering innovations that lower our clients costs
of managing data – right now that’s what is top of mind for across
the industry. Our customers recognize the powerful innovations that DB2 delivers
– such as data compression, XML, etc. and want to take advantage of them
for new and existing applications, to lower the cost of managing their data. It
is our goal to make it as easy as possible for them to adopt DB2, whether their
applications were originally written for DB2 or not. It is important for us to
help our customers/partners maintain their technology investments and ensure they
can leverage their existing skills,” says Anil.
IBM also promotes
open-source strategies for the database solutions that we offer. This includes
offering DB2 Express-C for production use at no charge – with IBM support
options available. As businesses and applications expand, users generally look
for a way to scale their databases. Unfortunately, many software vendors do not
provide an easy migration path to do that.
However, with DB2 Express-C
they can get started for free with an easy-to-use database, that fully supports
interfaces like Web Services, PHP, Ruby on Rails, Django, Python, etc as well
as cloud environments like Amazon EC2 and any application written for DB2 Express-C
can be seamlessly run against more scalable (Workgroup, Enterprise) editions of
DB2 without any changes to the application code.
Finally...
In the global economy, competition is intense. Budgets are tight. Customers are
demanding. To survive – and thrive – companies in all industries must
streamline processes. But data is the power that runs a modern business. Regardless
of the industry vertical, the importance of data and the need to manage it remains
of utmost importance. That reflects the robust market for database management
systems in India, with a strong growth potential even during a downturn.
“Considering
these factors, we definitely see a great market potential even for partners to
invest and reap benefits out of Database Management System,” says Anil.
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