After reading a post by the brilliant Evan Levy (half of the Levy/Dyche Baseline Duo) about Column Oriented Databases, I was scrolling through the comments and noticed someone asking “How do they compare to MPP?”.

Seems to me, this is like asking how a mainframe compares to a spiffy new two-way quad-core Linux server.

Like the mainframe, MPP dbms will live on in speciality situations for decades but to mainstream users, any MPP based solution is a legacy app. Even Teradata is reinventing itself as a LINUX platformed marketing solution (and doing a good job) – that tragic Greenplum thing will die on the vine.

Lots of folks are using MPP heavy metal, it is good stuff – no need to tell me … if you’re considering buying a MPP rig, please comment as to why – I’m not tryng to talk you out of it or sell anything, just very curious as to what I am missing.