A Study on the Strategy of the Massive Parallel Data Warehousing System Industry
Date Issued
2010
Date
2010
Author(s)
Kung, Chi-Chang
Abstract
Data Warehousing System has been an important information system of modern enterprises. Its major value is to improve the quality of business decisions, and it has the strategic potential of strengthening the competitive advantages of an enterprise. The basis of non-massive parallel processing data warehousing systems is relational database, but its common IT infrastructure, i.e. servers, storage area network switches, and disk arrays, fails to process effectively data volume larger than a few terabytes. As the trend of ever expanding data volume for operational and strategic decisions of enterprises is unavoidable, the importance of massive parallel processing (MPP) data warehousing system increases as well. It has been almost 20 years since the first MPP data warehousing system was installed in Taiwan, but its usage is restricted to top enterprises of each industry only, monopolized by one vendor Teradata, and the data volume handled by such systems is mostly in the rage of 5-10 Terabytres, hardly the true potential of MPP data warehousing systems. The purpose of this research is to analyze the plausible strategies for the companies other than Teradata in this industry. In addition, it is intended to analyze the applicability of resource-based view theory as an analysis framework for strategic analysis.
The thesis first introduces the technical architecture of MPP data warehousing systems, as a basis for a value chain analysis, and then describes alternative designs, as a basis for analyzing the threat of substitutes within the five foce framework. Next, the thesis describe industry’s major players, including market share, financial conditions, history, product characteristics, etc., as a basis for an industry analysis. Based on the information, the theis conducts strategy analysis based on four frameworks: value chain, resource-based view, five force framework, and value net. Finanaly, the thesis provides Taiwan market information, and fine tune the strategy analysis results based on local market conditions.
The research suggests that an MPP data warehousing system should integrate with data analysis software in order to provide maximum values to the customer. Therefore, vendors in this industry are advised to cooperate with data analysis solution vendors, vertical application vendors, etc., integrate these products and optimize the performance. In addition, as massive parallel processing capabilities is a rare, critical resource of this industry, the vendors should make effort to raise its service level in order to help the customers improve their applications’ performance and demonstrate the values of MPP data warehousing systems. Otherwise, without such critical resources, partner companies such as SI companies are not capable enough to bring the values to the customers. On the other hand, MapReduce-based cloud computing technology is a substitute to the products of this industry, having high potential threats. The MPP data warehousing vendors are advised to take advantage of the cloud computing trend, aggressively adopt the cloud technology, integrate it with the MPP data warehousing technology, and make effort to identify market segments for each of the two technologies, so as to differentiate the vendor itself among others, and reduce the risk of major industry restructuring.
In terms of the Taiwan market, the vendors of this industry is advised to target the engineering data analysis applications of major manufacturers, as an entry point for the Taiwan market, organize regional service organizations to support the system integrators and data analysis agent in Taiwan, and work with complementary companies to advertise to the enterprises the benefit of processing large volume of data, in an effort to change the behavior of the Taiwanese enterprises that processing small volume of data using MPP data warehousing systems.
The research confirms that resource-based view is a valuable framework for internal analysis of strategy management, as a complementary framework of value chain analysis. However, the theory lacks of a systematic method to identify critical resources, as well as a quantitative approach for analyzing the value creation of resources.
Subjects
Massive Parallel Processing (MPP)
Data Warehousing
Strategy
Value Chain
Resource-based View
Five Force Analysis
Value Net
Cloud Computing
Type
thesis
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Loading...
Name
ntu-99-P97747001-1.pdf
Size
23.32 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum
(MD5):62b9ff235bd17d49a1714f94a056497b