There has been much discussion in other blogs and other media about the economies of scale that Amazon is bringing to the market, making large scale computing available at a cost that has impressed many. The cost structure for their Redshift product appears to be no different. Based on the current costs, I have put […]

So what is a column store anyway?
When you think of a database you very naturally think in terms of rows and columns, so a column store is just a different way of saying the same thing… right?… well kind-of… you still access the data in the same ways by asking the same kinds of questions, but the physical layout is quite […]
Getting Started with Amazon Redshift – Sample Chapter
Here is a preview of one of the chapters (available at PacktPub):

And the book is…
“Getting Started with Amazon Redshift” As I have been hinting about in a few posts, I have been busy working on a book. Now that there is something to see, I wanted to share some details about the project. It all came about a few months ago with an invitation from the publisher to put […]

How big is your data?
I will not take credit for the here, it is something I ran across, but struck me as so very appropriate for the topic I have been beating the drum about since my post about zetabyte storage needs. It is with those “extreme” storage needs that you need to build and design today’s […]
What does that checkbox do? (Redshift Encryption)
**EDIT** I don’t normally go back and edit things in a prior post… but… in this case the additional link to Werner Vogels blog that came out after I wrote this is worthwhile to the topic at hand. **EDIT** As I alluded to in the prior post, I have been busy… I have actually been busy […]
More blog-posts to come…
I know in my last post, I indicated there would be more blog posts shortly on Amazon Redshift. Those posts are coming… this is not that post… (sorry). My bog-posts have taken a short detour, that in the coming weeks will become more clear. For now, know that I have not forgotten you!… I will […]
“Big Data” with Amazon Redshift – Intro
If you have been following along on my blog, you have seen the various technical and other ramblings for my recent R&D efforts around “Big Data”. A little while ago I wrote about giving Amazon a try which I still believe is true… and long those lines, am now giving Amazon Redshift (their new entry […]
Hadoop – some basic setup
For those of you coming along on this journey, I want to take a quick step back. Rather than assuming what you do and don’t know a little background to how to make this installation go. This post is not really “interesting findings” but rather a how-to for the install process. As I explained in […]
Hadoop/Hive a few lessons learned
It has been a few days since the last set of posts, and quite honestly did not want to leave it hanging even this long, so I wanted to give a brief update to (at least help) cut-off some of the frustrations I have faced for those of you attempting the same path through the […]