from this you can guess i am a huge fan of database appliances, i used a netezza box for a year and it was fantastic. i have to be honest though, when i was told that it was 100 times faster i felt throwing the sales guy out the door, glad i didn't as he was right. it did raise a bigger issue for me, why are data people so focused on their own technology and defend it to the death? i was one of these.
however i think this defence makes data people make all the wrong decisions. data infrastructure is becoming more and more flexible and the idea that your total structure will stay the same for the next 10 years is for me dead. i think the structure will evolve, especially data that is primarily used for analysis after all it is just a table or as i often tell the it guys "its just a csv file at heart"
the question for me is why are we as data analysts not at all flexible around our data tech yet require infinite flexibility when using the data? surely this has to change, but maybe its just me ;) i do after all only have two readers.