Teradata Reviews

Our use cases are all about data ingestion, data manipulation, and data exploration. It's the core database for us.

It's the same as your visual database. I like the fast load feature for data, BTQ nd storage procedures are very good. They can avoid table locking, which is very good.

Sometimes the large ingestion jobs takes days to load data, and some of our stored procedures take longer. I don't know whether it's the tool or the network, but it takes a long time to execute complex commands.

I've been using this solution for around five years Now. We currently use the latest version. 

It is a stable solution. I would rate the stability a nine out of ten.

I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten. It is scalable. 

There are more than 100 users currently using Teradata in our organization.

The customer service and support are good. But they take a long time to respond.

So there is room for improvement in response time. 

It's a very straightforward installation process. It's good in terms of installation.

The solution requires maintenance. Our team of ten engineers manage and maintain the solution.

It is yearly basis. The licensing is based on a contract. It's a very expensive product.

I would rate the pricing model a three out of ten, where one is very expensive and not cost-effective, and then ten is a very cheap product. The solution is fairly expensive. 

Overall, if I consider the expense, features, and everything, then I would rate the solution a six out of ten.

We'd done a lot of replacements of sites. We've installed new systems with Unity support. We installed and deployed around about five systems for a bank in South Africa. When the old Teradata equipment became obsolete, we replaced them with new ones. 

I was involved with the whole thing from start to end. You can't just upgrade Teradata. You have to see if all of the other stuff is compatible with the new site. 

The most valuable feature of Teradata was actually the fact that it controls everything on a database. It's very, very fast. The way that it operates, the way it was designed, is quick. Not one other system, even IBM, is working on the principle of how Teradata is working. Teradata system is like a multiprocessor. In an IBM system, if you send him a query, the one CPU will handle it, and it will do the query and it'll send it out again. With Teradata, if the one query is coming in, you've got 12 CPUs and 20 hard drives; that query will be handled, at the same time, by the 12 CPUs and the 20 hard drives to store and subtract the information. It's just a totally different way how Teradata is working, and due to that, the performance of Teradata is extraordinary. There is no other system in the world that compares to it.

The setup is not straightforward.

I would like Teradata to get involved in South Africa. They aren't doing aggressive promotion of Teradata systems in South Africa. They really should.

I was dealing with the solution for 12 years. 

I was doing professional services for them. They call it PS, and I've done customer services support for them, for the hardware and software support CS for 12 years, and as we grow, that time when I started, we were quite small and as the time we're growing, we are getting more persons on board.

The stability is excellent except for Unity. That time when Unity was installed, if it was running on passive routing, it was fine; however, if you're running on active, there was still some problem with the software. We've tried to put it on active routing every time we experience major problems with the software. When that happens, we must go back to passive routing again. When I spoke to someone the other day, they said there's a new app now. They're going to shut down Unity. There's some other application they're going to install now. They're not going to continue with Unity anymore, and that's not being sold to clients anywhere worldwide. However, there was definitely a bug in the software. As we were installing Unity, there were always coming new releases out, and we had to upgrade, and even with the upgrades, it still gave us problems. It became better, yet it wasn't ever 100% successful.

Otherwise, with the other systems, for all our other clients, the 12 years I worked for them, I had maybe eight or nine P1 calls, meaning that the system was down. The system is very stable, except when we started to fill Unity for the bank. Then we had a lot of P1 calls caused by Unity.

For the Unity side, we've had issues. Otherwise, with the other systems, for all our other clients, the 12 years I worked for them, I had maybe eight or nine P1 calls, meaning that the system was down. The system is very, very stable, except when we started to fill Unity for the bank. Then we had a lot of P1 calls caused by Unity.

We had 120 people in our organization working with the solution. However, our clients, depending on which account, could have thousands of users. 

We get excellent, excellent support from Teradata. I had a good relationship with Teradata. I know all the guys quite well. We get excellent support. I can always phone them as well. Even if you log the call as the process from Teradata, if they tell you they will respond in so many hours on a P1, P2, or P3, it always happens when they say it will. It's not that I had to escalate something. However, they've been great overall. 

Positive

It's not straightforward. You must know what you're doing. If you don't feed the data in correctly, it's read like bad data, bad performance. We've seen a couple of times where we've done an investigation to understand why some of the queries are slow, and then we found out that the programmers made a mistake in the way that they've created the data or the query and that was causing the problems on Teradata. 

We've seen this a couple of times. You can't be an IBM person and think you can become a programmer for Teradata. It's two different systems, and we've seen it several times. You have to know what you're doing when you do it, especially on the analytics side of Teradata.

To deploy Teradata, it takes a lot of pre-planning. It can take anywhere from two to four months. It all depends. There's a lot of stuff, actually, for the pre-planning phase, and that's one of the most important things. You have to do a lot of homework before you actually replace the system or you migrate the system. There's lots of planning that you have to put in place before you do that. YOu need a minimum of two to four months.

For the customer CS support for the hardware and software support, we had around about six engineers that were supporting all six systems and we had three people off-site.

Here in South Africa, we didn't use consultants. Sometimes, if we don't come right, we will log a call with Teradata and ask them to help us. That said, all of the upgrades and everything we've done it on our own without any problems. We had some performance problems on the systems at the bank and then we got Teradata to assist, which they helped resolve.

They've got various licenses. We would ensure that clients have all the licenses and everything for all the systems rolled out. That was part of the deal when we sold our system to Teradata. In the new system, subscriptions ensured everything was covered, or most everything was covered. The only thing we brought into the subscription side was the hardware and software support were separate. In the old days, you had to take the node support, hardware and software local, and the subscription and the bar support. With the latest models we sold, you just had the local support which you brought in and the subscription. 

I was the national service support manager for Teradata South Africa. I was in charge of all the sites in South Africa, Gauteng, and Cape Town. I was in charge of all the support services for Teradata.

I'd recommend the solution to other organizations. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. It's one of the best systems in the world. 

I am a Teradata administrator as well as a developer. I have about 700 users who are using our system, and we are maintaining the system in terms of tuning and in terms of all end-to-end items above the Teradata system.

We are using it as a data warehouse. In the data warehouse, we have got so many users who are doing their reporting and different types of analytics work using the solution.

Teradata's pretty fast. That is one very important aspect of the solution.

There are other tools, like Viewpoint, in Teradata, which is a monitoring tool.  

The integration is pretty easy here in Teradata.

It can scale.

We have found the solution to be stable. 

The market is enhancing, and every day, BigQuery, Snowflake, Redshift, and all these competitors are moving very, very fast. They're bringing out many new features. For example, Snowflake now has Time Travel and cloning and all these very interesting features. Teradata is an old data warehouse, and they're not improving in terms of new, innovative features. Basically, they're pretty much consistent and unchanging. They're not bringing new features. I've been working with it for eight years, and I have not seen so many new features. Maybe there have been only one or two in the last eight years. Innovation is something that is a bit slow with respect to Teradata. Other competitors are better in terms of new innovations. I'd like to see Teradata add features like cloning or time travel.

There is a query tool. However, we need to install the tool in order to fetch records. With other data warehouses, they have a web-based tool that allows for queries without having to download.

The initial setup is not too easy.

When we want to scale, we need to go to Teradata to initiate the process. 

I've been using the solution for around eight years. 

The solution is stable and reliable. I'd rate it nine out of ten. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

While the solution is scalable, and you can add new nodes if you want to, it's not instantaneous. We need to reach out to Teradata and they will handle the changes we require. Scaling is a process. 

Technical support has been very good. We have been pleased with the level of attention we receive. 

Positive

I also use BigQuery and Snowflake. They are more complex, and therefore, it can be harder to integrate using them.

Teradata is a better monitoring tool, and it offers better performance with respect to bigger data queries. However, it continues to lack innovation. 

The solution is not straightforward to set up. For example, if I target the users, the users need to install things and set up things up. Even the LDAP integration and all those things are not easy with respect to Teradata if I compare it with BigQuery, Snowflake, and Redshift.

If I want to spin off a new node or anything like that with Teradata, it's a bit tricky compared to other data warehouses where we can easily spin off new nodes and work on them.

Since our system is like a fixed system, when we did this deployment, it didn't take that much time. However, it was not easy. If I wanted to add additional load into the system, I needed to hand over the Teradata system to Teradata, and they had to do it, and that would take a day to do. Now, if I compare it with BigQuery or Snowflake, I can spin off new clusters without any issues. I can just add the number of nodes in that new warehouse, and I can run it. 

How long it takes to deploy depends on how big the system is. That said, compared to others, it definitely takes a little bit of extra time.

Since Teradata takes care of the implementation, I'm not sure how many people are ultimately involved in the deployment. From our side, we had two or three people involved in the setup. 

We have five to six admins to manage a 24/7 project.

Teradata handled a lot fo the implementation for us. 

I'm not overly aware of pricing. That said, my understanding is that it is reasonable. While it has a bit of an edge in pricing, everyone is relatively close in pricing. 

I'm a customer.

I'd advise potential users to do a proper POC first. 

Teradata is beneficial when we have a huge amount of data, and queries are complex. It works well with small queries as well. However, companies won't benefit that much from Teradata if they are only focused on small queries.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. If they were more innovative, I would rate them higher. 

There are two very useful features. 

One is the fast data input for more or less any online data. It performs rather well. Two, it also has a lot of tools for data engineering or data manipulation that are compatible. 

The solution offers an easy setup.

It's stable and reliable.

The solution like scales just fine.

Some of our clients are looking for on-premise installations as well. Although we don't have any, some of our prospects are also asking, and we are not sure if that part is easily doable or is as effective. We haven't tried on-premises, so we don't know how good it is. We are not confident about proposing on-premise to them, since we are more familiar with the cloud. Maybe some documentation on how on-prem works or what other things to look for in on-premise deployment would be helpful. We'd love to see more tutorials. 

Our company does data science and AI machine learning algorithms on the data that is deciding on the Teradata, so that's the value we add. From my perspective, it would be good if they gave better ITIN/R plugins to use the data for AI modeling, or data science modeling. We can do it now; however, it could be more elegant in terms of interfacing.

I've been using the solution for four or five years. 

The solution is very stable, and the performance is good. It's reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

Our clients do not have very large data sets. So far, the environment has scaled fine, however, once the volumes grow, we will have to see whether we are facing any problems or not. Right now, we don't see any problems. We just haven't tried to scale massively.

We haven't needed much technical support. That said, some of my colleagues have been able to contact them and get service as and when required. It's all right. 

Positive

On cloud, it is very easy to set up. 

It's moderately priced. It's not cheap. I'd rate it 2.5 out of five in terms of affordability.

I am not knowledgeable about the other vendors to make a meaningful comparison. I haven't really taken the time to evaluate other options. 

The solution is most suitable for medium to large-scale businesses. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

I would recommend the solution to others. 

IntelliFlex is used in the banking sector as a production system.

IntelliFlex's best feature is its reliability.

I've been using IntelliFlex for three years.

IntelliFlex is very stable, aside from some issues with the Unity Software, though I believe those are being resolved now.

IntelliFlex is easy to scale - one of its best features is that you can upscale it to the size you want. For example, we started in vertical with a six-node system and now have a twenty-four-node system.

IntelliFlex's technical support is excellent.

Positive

The initial setup is complex because there are a lot of factors that come into play, including the amount of software and applications that require access. Deployment takes around two to four months, assuming that all the company's applications are compatible with the system - if not, it may take longer.

IntelliFlex is the Rolls Royce of data warehousing. I would recommend it to other users and rate it nine out of ten.

Teradata was mostly a control system for us where we were fetching the data from it on basic time intervals, on various DVs and various schema where we had to fetch the data. Reading was the main operation that we used Teradata for, but while reading, there were complex ENTs that we had to write because of a few data that was supposed to be transformed and then fetched, so that was the major use case for the solution.

There are several features of Teradata that I like. One of the most basic is the indexes. I also like that it provides lower TCO. It also has the optimizer feature which is a good feature and isn't found in other legacy systems. Parallelism is also another feature I like in Teradata because when you are running or hosting on multiple systems, you have this shared-nothing architecture that helps. Loading and unloading in Teradata are also really helpful compared to other systems.

Teradata is good, but eventually, my company is moving to a higher-level system. You wouldn't want to work on a lower-level system.

As for the areas for improvement in Teradata, since I was working on the very basic, legacy systems, the memory thing was always a challenge. If Teradata is moving to the cloud, the space constraint or the memory issue that my company generally faces will eventually resolve, in time.

What I'd like to see in the next release of Teradata is that it becomes full-fledged on the cloud, apart from better connectivity to various systems. For example, if I have to read or include a Python script, if I write some basic codes, I should be able to read even unstructured data. I know that it's not supported even in Snowflake, but at least semi-structured data support, if that can be a little more enhanced, that would be good.

I've been using Teradata for a year and a half now, and I'm using its latest version.

In terms of stability, Teradata is stable. All legacy systems are quite stable and do not have that much downtime, probably because no one would work with a system that is not stable.

Teradata is scalable, but it takes time because you have to increase the servers. On the legacy system, it's the physical servers that you increase and that takes time.

I don't have experience with Teradata technical support, because the client handles the maintenance. It's the client who reaches out to the technical support team in case there's a need to increase service on the Teradata system, or if there's any downtime or any glitches in terms of catching or loading the data, but that doesn't happen often.

Setting up Teradata took time. The server has to be set up and that takes time. Next, the IDs need to be set up and the role level security that the legacy system provides is definitely not up to the mark when compared to the cloud, so that is a concern. I'm talking truly about the legacy system. I haven't worked on the cloud part of it. It took more time to deploy Teradata.

Deploying the solution from dev to the QA environment, for example, creating tables, then copying over the data, are completed within twenty four to forty eight hours. It's the timeframe the DBA used to give, which is pretty high. With the closing features that we have normally, that would be a long time.

Implementation was taken care of by the client.

Teradata pricing is fine, and it's competitive with all the legacy models. On a scale of one to five, with one being the worst and five being the best, I'm giving Teradata a three, because it can be a little expensive, when compared to other solutions.

Teradata requires maintenance, but the team in charge of the maintenance was not in-house. It was taken care of by an external support team. There are forty to fifty users of the solution in the company. I'm use Teradata on a daily basis.

I'm rating Teradata an eight out of ten.

We primarily use the solution as a relational database. We use it mainly for logistics. 

The solution offers very good features. It's useful when you are working with data. 

The level of complexity is okay.

It can handle very large amounts of data. It is very powerful. 

Designing the database is easy.

The solution is stable.

It is easy to set up.

The scalability is good. 

Technical support was fine to deal with.

I'd like to see a better relationship with the business itself. Business users have trouble finding solutions when they run into issues in the data warehouse.

It can be a bit complex to work with.

Regarding data warehousing, I'd like to see more data and business analysis to help with the design and development. 

It's primarily designed for big projects and therefore, the pricing is pretty high. It's not suitable for smaller companies. 

I've been using the solution for 20 years.

The solution is stable and reliable. It doesn't crash or freeze. There are no bugs or glitches. As long as it was designed well, a company shouldn't have issues. 

The solution can scale well.

I'm not sure how many users are on the solution. Likely, it is up to hundreds of users. 

We do not have plans to increase usage. We stopped using it this summer. 

We've used support in the past. I had worked closely with them. The technical team was fine to deal with.

It's not too complex. It's designed for huge amounts of data, and it's planned out well. As long as you follow some principles, it won't be too complicated. 

I've used the solution for more than a decade. It was a while since I deployed the solution. 

You start with business analysis and design the database structure from there. After that, you can start populating and developing. 

How many people you need for deployment or maintenance would depend on how big the implementation is. 

Typically, we handle the initial setup in-house. It is possible to get help if we need it. Whether or not a company needs help depends on the customer and their level of comfort with the setup.

I have witnessed an ROI while using the solution. 

The pricing makes sense for bigger projects. It wouldn't make sense for smaller companies or smaller projects.

We are primarily using the latest version of the solution. 

It works well both on-premises and on the cloud. 

I would recommend the solution. However, it depends on the project itself. Based on the stability alone, I would recommend it. It's good for bigger projects. If it is used for small projects, the complexity and price may be too high. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

Teradata Data Lab is used for simulations.

In Data Lab, you can schedule any testing you want to do in production. You can take a small subset of data from production, copy it there, and run all your tests. It reduces your testing costs because it's all in the lab.

If I want to implement an upgrade, I'd like to see how it will be different. Ideally, Data Lab should help me test production items and also do future things. Future releases should be downloadable and testable in Data Lab.

Data Lab is very stable. It has been in the market for 25 years.

Data Lab is highly scalable. My organization has a lot of users, but each company has more than 30,000 users. More than a thousand customers are using it, so there are more than 300,000 users out there.

Teradata technical support is excellent. 

You don't have to do any installation. It is an out-of-the-box solution. It's low maintenance. We have one person, but if you need 24/7 coverage, you need four or five people. 

We have a subscription. Nowadays, everything is cloud-based, so you pay for the subscription, and it is pretty affordable. There aren't any additional costs. So what you see is what you get. 

I rate Teradata Data Lab nine out of 10.