Happy Birthday to our analytical database, WX2!
Since its introduction, WX2 has been a constant source of innovation in the field of data warehousing. It was the first platform to offer large-scale data warehousing, the first to enable Data Warehousing as a Service (DaaS) for organizations and one of the first to move onto an entirely software-based model. In fact, you could say that Kognitio has been responsible for innovating and advancing numerous data warehousing concepts and practices that are considered the leading edge in the field of business intelligence, such as the ability to query hundreds of terabytes of information within seconds instead of weeks, and enabling companies of all sizes to more easily take advantage of advanced data analytics at lower cost.
In the whole history of WX2, the decision to move to a software-based solution was undoubtedly one of the most important. As hardware became available that was powerful enough to perform the processing we needed, it became logical to move to away from our own, proprietary hardware. We could then focus on our core talent: making sure our product is plug-and-play, and can return ultra-fast results on queries any time, any place, anywhere, while at the same time reducing the work required by the IT department. Our customers rely on us to make complex analysis of their data possible within seconds, whether it’s from housands of set-top boxes or millions of telecoms customers, no matter how unstructured it might be.
WX2 uses massively parallel processing to provide a high-quality, fast data warehouse. Essentially, a large number of machines run in synchronization with one another, using their combined power to run a far larger data warehouse than would otherwise be possible. The power this method provides means that there is no need to rigidly stratify the data warehouse and vet data as it is entered: all of the data can be accessed and queried, all of the time, as soon as it is added to the warehouse, greatly decreasing set‐up times. WX2 is flexible in its operation and implementation. WX2 can act and operate as a disk‐based database or it can reach impressive and unmatched speeds by accessing the data in‐memory on the parallel machines, WX2 is able to produce results exponentially aster than using disk-based methods as with other systems. As a result, query times are reduced from hours to seconds, and from weeks to hours.
The power of these massively parallel processing systems means that WX2 is ideal for providing Data Warehousing as a Service (DaaS), essentially relieving the customer and their staff of the responsibility for building and maintaining a data warehouse and placing it in the hands of Kognitio’s expert consultants. As a result, organizations can rely on a best-of-breed data warehouse manned by expert personnel without requiring a significant capital expense or the acquisition and maintenance of a specialist skill set that may or may not currently exist.
Customers that have expected implementing data warehousing to be a six-month to two-year project have seen DaaS from Kognitio up, running and returning analysis within an afternoon. Over its history, WX2 has gone through several iterations and evolutions and is currently on its fourth generation.
The first-generation Information Processing Engine was upgraded in 1993 to the 9,000 series. At this point, WX2 was a hardware as well as software‐based technology, with the technological and maintenance issues that entailed. The next major update, in 1997, moved the technology on to Intel processors away from InMOS, making for a more standardized approach but still remaining somewhat tied to physical boxes. In 2003, the fourth-generation WX2 was announced, moving for the first time to an entirely software-based platform and massively reducing the price and increasing the potential of data warehousing. Today, WX2 offers companies the widest, most flexible range of deployment options; it can be licensed as software‐only for deployment on a total capacity basis, as an integrated appliance built with industry-standard hardware, or through Kognitio’s innovative, industry-first DaaS offering.
Companies globally are taking advantage of WX2’s power: they include Kelkoo, Groupe Aéroplan's Loyalty Management Group, the National Center for Genome Resources (NCGR), TRA, Inc. and British Telecom, which has been a customer since 1997.
We're pleased to announce that we have recently been awarded another accolade. This time it's fromNetwork Products Guide Reader Trust and it's for the Best in Business Intelligence. For more information, read here:
