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 use Teradata as our company's data warehouse engine to process tons of data since we are the Central Bank of Columbia, where we use that for statistics to study several areas of banking. Our main database, data warehousing, data mining, and back office statistics are done with the help of Teradata. We heavily use Oracle as our transactional database, but we use Teradata for all other purposes.

I am not exactly the person doing the programming and exploring the product's different features. To get information on the product's features, I will have to contact some engineers in charge of programming. The most valuable feature of the product is the ability of the product to process huge amounts of data without creating conflicts in the queries. The way the database and IntelliFlex are designed, you can process several queries from different applications simultaneously, and they don't conflict with each other. I mean, I think that's the reason why we find improvements in our query time. The way the queries are internally in IntelliFlex process makes them less complicated. In other databases, when you start a query, the dataset is put on hold for a while, so all the queries have to wait for the first query to finish. IntelliFlex and Teradata are designed to avoid such an issue because I am unsure. I feel Teradata IntelliFlex can function in the aforementioned manner since they manage smaller sets of data, because of which there are no conflict queries between one and the other.

I don't have the exact details of the improvement needed in the performance of Teradata IntelliFlex because I work with the infrastructure department. The infrastructure department is in charge of getting infrastructure for the system to work, but before having Teradata, the data processing was taking a lot longer than it is now. We got into Teradata because we needed fast processing of huge amounts of data since, in the past, we were trying to achieve it with Oracle databases, and it wasn't good enough. In the last two years, the processing times have reduced by a third or a fourth of the time without causing any problems because of the efficiency of the Teradata engine.

The only issue our company has with Teradata IntelliFlex is that it is not cost-effective because of the way the product has been designed. We have Teradata IntelliFlex on-premises because we pay for a lot of muscle that we are not using. The problem we're seeing is that when we try to move into Teradata IntelliFlex's cloud services, we notice that Teradata doesn't have a flexible price structure to allow you to use a fraction of IntelliFlex's extension and charge just for the use of the solution. We receive messages from Teradata asking us to pay for the services we use on-premises, while in reality we use less than 30 percent of the machine's capacity.

There is something that is not working in favor of the business models for IntelliFlex when you plan to move to the cloud.

I have been using Teradata IntelliFlex for two years. Our company plans to renew the solution's latest version, but the hardware is around two years old.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten. In the two years we have been using the platform, we have had only one or two issues that got the service out for a few hours.

The product's scalability is great. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

I rate the technical support a nine to ten out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup was straightforward. Before IntelliFlex, we were using Teradata's 2700 and 2800 appliances. We were moving from a Teradata appliance to a new Teradata appliance, and during that process, we were able to move all the data in between three to six months without a problem, keeping both platforms working until we moved into IntelliFlex. The setup phase was a good process.

The solution is deployed on-premises. We are planning to move to the cloud in the future.

We feel that we are given the services from Teradata IntelliFlex for what we are paying. We are the Central Bank of Colombia, a non-profit organization, making it difficult for us to say that because of IntelliFlex, our earnings have increased. My institution doesn't aim for any earnings. We have been able to provide much better services to all of our customers, including all the financial institutions in our country, because of which I can say there has been a return on investment using Teradata IntelliFlex. A return on investment is possible based on the improvements in our service to our customers.

Our company is just looking to see if there is another product other than Teradata IntelliFlex that we can use in the future, not because we are not happy with the product. The reviews on Teradata IntelliFlex point out that it is a very solid and efficient solution, but we are slightly worried about the cost.

The price and the pricing structure should be improved.

Two years ago, we had plans to move into the cloud since we were doing so with all the products we have in our company to avoid having our own data centers. When we tried to move Teradata IntelliFlex to the cloud this year, we noticed that at this point in time, we might have to stay on-premises for a couple of years or until Teradata provides us with a better price structure. Owing to the aforementioned reasons, we have been considering moving to another more flexible platform and more price convenient for our company.

We are happy with the services provided by Teradata IntelliFlex.

At this point, it's worth looking at other alternatives other than Teradata IntelliFlex, depending on the kind of use you plan to do with the platform. There are certain areas of our company where we have noticed that we could get the same benefits from another platform, especially from the ones which are not pricey. If you really want to take advantage of the wonderful performance and speed that Teradata provides, then you need to choose it. But if you don't need the level of performance offered by Teradata, you can look for other alternatives. 

Overall, I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

Teradata Cloud Data Warehouse offers a more cost-effective cloud solution. However, the main challenge we encounter, especially in South Africa, is the limited bandwidth available for connecting to our cloud network. This is where the cost factor becomes significant, making it impractical to fully utilize the cloud due to the bandwidth constraints required for communication with the cloud. This limitation poses a major problem. While we can access certain features of cloud solutions from Teradata for free to evaluate them, it is not feasible for serving a large user base like two to three million people accessing the database. To accommodate such a user load, we would need a massive and robust pipeline connecting to the cloud.

The cloud is ten times better than physical hardware; it is more cost-effective and the upgrade process is ten times easier. Teradata Cloud options are also more affordable for anyone, especially for small companies. However, if our company expands significantly, it may become less affordable due to the costs associated with the necessary connection and bandwidth required to communicate with the servers.

South Africa must significantly improve its internet infrastructure to reduce its high costs. I believe South Africa is one of the most expensive countries in the world when it comes to obtaining high-speed internet connections. We need to establish different service level agreements with clients to ensure we have backup lines and redundancy. The crucial question we need to ask ourselves is, how reliable do we want our internet connection to be? In the case of using cloud services, it's essential to have another line as a backup in case the primary one fails. In our situation, having a backup line is definitely necessary, but it also adds to the expenses. For a major bank like ours, relying on a single connection to the cloud is not feasible; we must have a second line in place to ensure uninterrupted service in case of any issues with the primary line.

The cost of Teradata Cloud Data Warehouse has room for improvement.

I have been using Teradata Cloud Data Warehouse for a few years.

I don't think there is another system in the world as stable as Teradata. They have a redundant hardware setup with double components for everything. If one component fails, another one takes over. This redundancy extends to the data side as well. The system runs on multiple disks, so if one disk fails, the data is still available on another disk, and the replacement process is seamless thanks to hot-swappable components. We don't have to shut down the entire system to replace most parts in the Teradata system. We can simply slide out the faulty component and slide in a new one. Unlike old technologies that required powering down the entire system, Teradata's architecture allows for most operations to remain functional even during maintenance. However, in certain cases, depending on the architecture, we might need to power down the systems.

Teradata Cloud Data Warehouse is highly scalable. I believe that Teradata is more scalable than IBM. Teradata is ten times faster in processing data compared to IBM. When it comes to multi-processing, IBM loses out to Teradata. For example, if we want to store files and we're running five, and we have 20 disks, restoring a certain file will be slower with IBM compared to Teradata. Other solutions may restore that file on one disk and its mirror image, but with Teradata, it functions differently. It stores parts of the file on all the twenty disks, which is why it performs so fast. Teradata's ability to utilize all the disks in the configuration through multi-processing is the reason for its speed.

The technical support at Teradata is the best in the world. All the support engineers have university degrees, and Teradata has its own university where we can access all their courses and components available in the market. This includes other applications as well. All of these resources can be found at Teradata University. About 80 percent of the courses can be completed remotely, but there are certain aspects that require in-person attendance in a classroom setting.

To access Teradata University and its resources, being a client is necessary, and certain subscriptions must be purchased based on our specific needs and inquiries, particularly regarding the Database Administrator side. The information we can access depends on the licenses we acquire with the system.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward, but we may struggle the first couple of times; however, it is very user-friendly. Anybody can download the solution and play with it. Moreover, there is a place where we can ask for help if we encounter problems during the installation of Teradata Cloud. This is one of the reasons why Teradata is very popular, as there are always people available to assist us.

The time required to set up a cloud depends on its size. For a small Teradata Cloud, it usually takes around 45 minutes to complete the setup process.

The most important part is to do our planning and understand the client's requirements before deploying the solution. There is no point in deploying a cloud solution for a client without knowing their specific requirements. Therefore, I believe that the planning phase is the most crucial aspect. Once we have a clear understanding of what the client wants, we can proceed with setting up Teradata Cloud Data Warehouse for them.

The implementation is done in-house by our solution architects.

Teradata used to be expensive, but they have been lowering their prices. The cost is becoming more comparable to other models, like IBM. I would rate the price a seven out of ten, with ten being the highest.

I rate Teradata Cloud Data Warehouse ten out of ten.

Teradata Cloud Data Warehouse is plug-and-play, much like Microsoft. It is a user-friendly and efficient product, and users will be pleased with its speed.