Story - The Appliance Model

New approaches to delivering systems and services are emerging all the time, including, for example desktop as a service. One new approach is the appliance model. Computer weekly describes this approach as: "In the appliance model, the supplier commits to preloading hardware with the necessary operating system and database, all tuned to data warehouse-type workloads in advance. Although further refinement will be necessary to optimise to the business's specific demands, the appliance comes out of the box more attuned to the needs of a data warehouse than a generic transactional database. "

Tasks

Explain the appliance model. In what way is it a commoditisation of information systems?

Investigate and present the offerings of some suppliers. Compare what they offer in order to summarize the concept and characteristics of a big data appliance.

Explain the connection with big data.

This is how IBM pitch their appliance:"Why IBM for Data Warehouse Appliances With simple deployment, out-of-the-box optimisation, no tuning and minimal on-going maintenance, the IBM Netezza data warehouse appliance has the industry's fastest time-to-value and lowest total-cost-of-ownership."Unpack this statement and explain the concepts in it.