HP Makes Big Data Warehousing Play

HP  next week will formally take the plunge into the data-warehousing market with a super server designed to help large enterprises run business intelligence applications, internetnews.com has learned.

A source familiar with the company’s plans said HP will launch the Neoview platform Tuesday.

The system, a kind of custom Integrity computer server, will run anywhere from 16 to 256 Intel Itanium 2 (Montecito) processors and HP’s Tandem NonStop operating system software. Additional specifications are listed in the Neoview owner’s manual here.

Data warehousing is the practice of maintaining a central repository for data that an enterprise’s various business systems collect. Think of the data warehouse as a giant library whose file cabinets are filled with any information pertaining to a single company.

News of the machine has been trickling out since October, when HP began stealth-marketing the product and offering it to customers in trials.

According to documentation on HP’s Web site, the Neoview is designed for “massive scale, complex mixed database workload, high concurrency, very complex query handling, and 24×7 continuous availability.”

The documentation also said applications from vendors SAS, MicroStrategy , Hyperion , Informatica , Cognos and Business Objects  have been certified to run on Neoview.

The source said HP will announce customers that have taken Neoview into production, as well as pricing for the machine at the April 24 launch.

Data warehousing machines are typically built to process several terabytes of data and range anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.

HP has taken a keen interest in business intelligence space recently, trying to ease customers’ data-management pain points en route to delivering on its overarching adaptive infrastructure strategy for aligning business needs with IT.

Just months ago, the company acquired BI service provider Knightsbridge Solutions Holdings Corp. to flesh out its business intelligence services offerings. Knightsbridge provides the kind of support services that would complement the transactions rendered by the NeoView platform.

That HP would target data warehousing is no surprise: Current CEO Mark Hurd came to HP from data-warehousing specialist NCR .

HP will also have heady competition from stalwarts, such as IBM , Oracle  and upstarts such as Kalido. IBM recently introduced its Dynamic Warehousing strategy for using advanced analytics to support business transactions.

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