SAP IQ Reviews

Sybase IQ is a column based database, used for business intelligence, data warehousing, and data marts. It is optimized for BI/Analytics and ad-hoc queries. Since it is column based it uses optimal storage space and very high performance.

Very few people are familiar with this technology, as training programs are very expensive.

I've used this product for almost five years.

The deployment is a bit complex compared to other databases.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

It's good.

I switched because of its column-based architecture and optimal storage.

It has two types of setup, Simplex, and Multiplex. Simplex is straightforward, while Multiplex is a bit complex. but once you get to grips with it, that's straightforward too.

It's worth investing in.

Good luck with it, putting in hard work will give you good returns.

• Ability to load data from flat files very quickly
• Data compression
• Fast querying for aggregations

IQ has enabled our company to load data from our data vendors in under one hour and eliminated multiple copies and hours of processing time.

DR capabilities need to be improved. For instance, unlike SAP ASE, there is no ability to replicate from IQ to IQ.

I've used it for 10 years.

No issues were experienced during deployment, however, we hit performance issues on Solaris which were eliminated when we migrated to the Linux platform.

With various patches of v15.4 and v16.0, we had instances where the IQ server crashed under certain circumstances. The vendor has addressed most of the issues though.

None product-related and we were able to get around by tuning. Though as we add more data and more users we may have to consider IQ multiplex in the future.

Customer Service:

7/10.

Technical Support:

9/10.

We used ASE to store the data in IQ. We switched as IQ now allows us to centrally store the data in one place and in a compressed format.

It's straightforward; IQ is one of the easiest DBMS to install.

For our initial IQ server we had Sybase consultants, and we used them again for our migration to Linux. Their expertise was 7/10.

Hardware cost was the biggest savings, in the tens of thousands of dollars.

No, as since we had Sybase ASE we took their IQ product without evaluating any other options.

IQ is a niche product and is good for data storage with it's massive compression ability and adhoc querying. With the emergence of in-memory databases and MPP platforms (like Cassandra, HANA, Greenplum,etc.). I see IQ being used as more of a data store than interacting with the end users or apps if shops chose to use these new technologies.

• Performance
• Scalability
• Ease of deployment
• Usability
• Administration

In the organizations I have worked with, SAP Sybase IQ has been used successfully as a datawarehouse solution and as data store for ad hoc querying. It delivers performance and enormous scalability.

Training and marketing are two areas where improvements are needed.

I've used it for eight years.

SAP Sybase IQ is a product which can be deployed very easily on commodity hardware.

Not really. In normal functioning SAP Sybase IQ is extremely stable.

No. I have seen deployments of datawarehouses with tens of TB's in used space and they scaled very easily to multiple applications.

Customer Service:

It has been good, but more can be done in this area.

Technical Support:

It's good, 7/10.

It's straightforward in the hands of a junior level DBA. The installer is very easy to understand as long as the user has a understanding of architecture and layout of the database server.

It's been in-house.

Understand your requirements well in terms of performance, backup, and space requirements before picking the number of licenses. If IQ is being used in a virtual environment then probably a good understanding of licensing options in a virtual environment is needed. Recently SAP has introduced some new license options, but new users should review those options with the sales team.

Estimate the storage requirements, performance requirements, and the number of users during the planning phase. Review the documentation related to hardware sizing and best practices available on the SAP website. There is a hardware estimation guide too which helps in estimating the hardware requirements. Lastly, review the multiplexing option too and understand the implication of columnar storage in a database server.

The column architecture.

Analytical reporting has improved.

Sales and marketing – I just want to elaborate on this a little bit more. The product itself is the best in the industry, which I liked and would like to work with again. IT has a lot less maintenance to support the database and query performance is best; it's very easy to use.

Around 13+ years.

In older version of Sybase IQ we had a few issues, just like any other product, but as the maturity of the product has grown, we have had really good success with this product.

Not in the recent versions of Sybase IQ.

No issues encountered.

Customer Service:

Customer service is great, as we have global support for this product from Asia, when we are working nights to fix problems or troubleshoot issues. They are with us all the time and it is a very good transition from US support to Asia and back as we try to solve the problems round the clock.

Technical Support:

10/10.

I used Sybase ASE and Microsoft SQL server heavily as Microsoft started off based on Sybase ASE, I was really comfortable with it. In between we tried DB2 and Teradata in different occasions and we went back to Sybase IQ for our operational and Analytical needs

The initial setup at the very beginning of the early versions was a little complex but as time went on, it got better and better and very easy. As a DBA, supporting this system is the best.

All my implementations are in-house for our company and we had group of DBA’s and Unix Administrators who helped us along. Our implementation was on Sun Solaris.

Very high, cost of implementing and maintain is very low and once installed and up and running, things will be just fine.

This product is rightly priced, or even under priced, for what it can do and for sure costs much less than other RDBMS products and licensing. They have more than one model which could fit your organization size and they are more than happy to work with you on this.

• Oracle
• DB2
• Teradata

Come up with clear requirements and a problem statement and see what you are trying to solve with this new implementation. Look beyond current problems by at least three to five years and be proactive and addressing them. You also need your senior management to buy into your approach and budget constraints, otherwise it will be challenging to make it successful.

Query Speed, Data Compression, Not restricted schema design, Fast Loading, Zero administration, Easy to learn and use.

ASIQ offers a query engine where you can design a fully denormalized schema depending on business needs. It has the best performance in data retrieval compared to other database engines and reduces HW cost, achieving up to 70% less storage; Database is smaller than input data, even with all the indexes.

Real Time.

No.

No.

No – ASIQ has ability to scale by adding CPUs or nodes with no need to re-organize the data.

Customer Service: GoodTechnical Support: Good

I have used other traditional RDBMs in Business Intelligence systems like MSSQL and Oracle but the performance was not so good when increasing the data volumes. In order to achieve the ASIQ performance, we had to spent a lot of time configuring properly the database.

The initial setup was straightforward.

Excellent

Is the best choice when used as DW data repository because it combines high speed queries and lower TCO.