A NEW BREED

analyst eye
also being added to Microsoft’s SQL
Server 2016.
While the specialist NoSQL vendors
will be able to argue that there are
(at the very least) performance
advantages in adopting specialist
databases, that isn’t really the point.
The question is whether the ability to
store JSON documents in a relational
database is good enough for
mainstream adopters to restrict the
market for those specialist databases
to a niche.
Mind games
The competing trends of dominance
and disruption make predicting the
evolution of the data platforms
and analytics sector an exercise in
cognitive dissonance. While we
expect the continued dominance of
the incumbent established vendors
and approaches, we do see early
adopters beginning to engage with
emerging vendors as they consider
their options for creating nextgeneration
data platforms.
451 Research expects these nextgeneration
platforms to be based
around tenets – multi-tenant, multimodel,
multi-data-centre, hybrid,
agile, elastic, distributed, automated
and delivered as a service – that are far
removed from those used to describe
existing data platforms.
These next-generation platforms are
likely to be based not just on new
approaches to data processing, but also
new so-called cloud-native computing
projects, such as the Mesos data centre
operating system, the Kubernetes
container-management framework,
and Docker containers. We anticipate
that the adoption of these cloud-native
foundation technologies will accelerate
the adoption of distributed database
and data processing platforms.
The key questions are: how fast will
the shift to these new platforms occur,
and will the incumbent vendors have
enough time to develop and acquire
the functionality required to protect
their dominant positions?
History suggests that
the incumbents will win
out. Despite early
adopters’ eagerness
to adopt specialist
products in their
pursuit of the
next big thing,
the combination
of established
functionality and
advances that are
‘good enough’ has
traditionally been
sufficient to serve the needs
of the silent majority of conservative
mainstream adopters.
Despite that, there is a sense that the
multiple tenets driving those nextgeneration
data platform concepts
mentioned above are so many and so
NoSQL is
expected to have
8.1%
of the total operational
database market in 2019
(451 Research)
varied that ‘good enough’ will not
be, well, good enough. After all,
we are potentially talking about a
fundamental refactoring of the data
management estate. As such, it seems
likely that none of the existing
vendors, established or otherwise,
has the wherewithal to address it.
Even then, the incumbent providers
have the advantage of deep cash
reserves to invest in developing
or acquiring the alternatives.
Microsoft and Oracle have chosen
the first option, developing Azure
DocumentDB and Oracle NoSQL
Database respectively, while IBM
has chosen the latter, acquiring
Cloudant and, more recently,
Compose to expand its
Cloud Data Services
portfolio.
The cloud platform
providers have
also been active
acquirers, with
Rackspace nabbing
MongoDB hosting
specialist ObjectRocket
in February 2013, and
CenturyLink snapping up
multi-model database-as-aservice
(DBaaS) provider Orchestrate
in April this year.
Expect further consolidation
among the emerging start-ups as
vendors look to combine the
capabilities required.
46 information-age.com September 15