Gartner Magic Quadrant For Operational Database Management Systems

G00261660
Magic Quadrant for Operational Database

Management Systems
Published: 16 October 2014
Analyst(s): Donald Feinberg, Merv Adrian, Nick Heudecker
The operational DBMS market continues to grow, with innovative products
and features being delivered by both new and traditional vendors.
Information management leaders will be particularly interested by the
changes in the Leaders quadrant.
Strategic Planning Assumptions
By 2017, the "NoSQL" label will cease to distinguish DBMSs, which will reduce its value and result
in it falling out of use.
By 2017, all leading operational DBMSs will offer multiple data models, relational and NoSQL, in a
single platform.
Market Definition/Description
The operational database management system (DBMS; see Note 1) market is defined by relational
and nonrelational database management products that are suitable for a broad range of enterprise-
level transactional applications. These include purchased business applications such as enterprise
resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management and customized transactional systems
built by an organization's development team. In addition, we include DBMS products that also
support interaction data and observation data (see Note 2) as new transaction types. These
products are also used both for purchased business applications, such as ERP, catalog
management and security event management, and for customized systems.
Additionally, operational DBMSs should provide interfaces to independent programs and tools that
permit, and govern the performance of, a variety of concurrent workload types. There is no
presupposition that these DBMSs must support the relational model or the full set of data types in
use today. Further, there is no requirement that the DBMS be a closed-source product;
commercially supported open-source DBMS products are included in this market.
Operational DBMSs must include functionality to support backup and recovery, and have some
form of transaction durability although the atomicity, consistency, isolation and durability (ACID)
model is not a requirement. For open-source DBMSs, maintenance and support must be available
from a vendor that owns, or has substantial control over, the source code, and must be offered with
a full General Public License (GPL) or an alternative.
For this Magic Quadrant, we define operational DBMSs as systems that support multiple structures
and data types, such as XML, text, JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), audio, image and video
content. They must include mechanisms to isolate workload resources and control various
parameters of end-user access within managed instances of data (see Note 3). Emerging
technologies, such as cloud-only DBMSs, are not included; nor are highly specialized engines such
as graph-only or object databases, which may perform some transactions for small subsets of
operational use cases. Products that "add a layer" to and require or embed a complete or near-
complete implementation of another commercially marketed product, such as Oracle MySQL, are
not included. Finally, "streaming" engines, whose use cases are dominated by immediate event
processing, and which are rarely, if ever, used for subsequent management of the data involved, are
also excluded.
For the purposes of this analysis, we treat all of a vendor's products as a set. If a vendor markets
more than one DBMS product that can be used as an operational DBMS, we describe them in the
section specific to that vendor, but we evaluate all of that vendor's products together as a single
entity. Strengths and Cautions relating to a specific offering or offerings are noted in the individual
vendor sections. It may be important for organizations to evaluate separate offerings as the range of
choices broadens, and as purchasers more frequently pursue best-of-breed strategies.
Operational DBMSs may support multiple delivery models, such as stand-alone DBMS software,
certified configurations, cloud (public and private) images or versions, and database appliances (see
Note 4). These are discussed and evaluated together in the analysis of each vendor.
Page 2 of 35 Gartner, Inc. | G00261660
Magic Quadrant
Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Operational Database Management Systems
Source: Gartner (October 2014)
Gartner, Inc. | G00261660 Page 3 of 35
Vendor Strengths and Cautions
Actian
Headquartered in Redwood City, California, U.S., Actian offers relational DBMS (RDBMS; Ingres)
and embedded (PSQL) engines, both suitable for operational use. Following a recent repositioning,
Actian focuses primarily on analytical use cases.
Actian did not respond to Gartner's requests for supplementary information or to review early drafts
of this section. Our analysis is therefore based on other credible sources, including publicly available
information, previous briefings with Actian, and interactions with users of Gartner's client inquiry
service.
Strengths
Large customer base: Actian claimed to have over 210,000 customers at mid-2013. Broad
geographic and industry coverage for Ingres, and a loyal following for PSQL, remain in place in
2014.
Rich portfolio: Actian's offerings provide modern features, including multiversion concurrency
control (MVCC), object and geospatial support, and column-level encryption.
Embeddable offering: Actian's PSQL gives it a means of entering the small-footprint, minimal-
administration market that is so important to mobile and Internet of Things applications.
Cautions
Complex portfolio, focused elsewhere: Actian's recent positioning efforts are aimed at
analytics, not operational use cases.
Deployment challenges: Actian received the lowest scores from customers surveyed in 2013
for ease of use, and very low scores for ease of implementation. Our interactions with users of
Gartner's client inquiry service in 2014 paint the same picture.
Market focus: Gartner's interactions with clients continue to indicate a lack of momentum from
Actian in relation to its operational DBMS and support of its Ingres DBMS.
Aerospike
Headquartered in Mountain View, California, U.S., and founded in 2009, Aerospike markets a hybrid
in-memory/flash NoSQL DBMS a real-time data platform for the operational transaction
market. It is available both as an open-source community version and an Enterprise Edition.
Strengths
Operational DBMS functionality: Aerospike's offering makes hybrid use of DRAM and flash as
addressable memory and not as file system support. Synchronous copies and support for
multiple data centers add high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) capabilities.
Aerospike's hybrid DBMS structure supports JSON and NoSQL key-value data.
Marketing and hardware ecosystem: Aerospike has strong partnerships with hardware
component vendors for DRAM and flash memory. Its marketing focuses on the market segment
that requires high transaction rates with near-100% availability.
Performance: Aerospike's reference customers supported its claims of high performance by

awarding it the highest scores for performance of any vendor in this Magic Quadrant. They also
gave it the highest score for ease of doing business.
Cautions
Lack of full functionality: Aerospike is strong in HA functionality but lacking in some basic SQL
and NoSQL functions, although it has added some SQL functionality.
Competitive positioning: With an increasing number of vendors supporting in-memory

DBMSs, Aerospike will need to differentiate itself more clearly. Many vendors have much larger
marketing programs a disadvantage for Aerospike.
HA/DR and ease of programming: Aerospike's reference customers identified difficulties in

programming and the management of HA/DR as weaknesses of its product, probably due to
the complexities of DR.
Altibase
Headquartered in Seoul, South Korea and Palo Alto, California, U.S., Altibase offers Altibase HDB,
an SQL operational DBMS capable of using in-memory, traditional disk or hybrid storage. Altibase
XDB is an in-memory-only DBMS.
Strengths
Performance and support: Reference customers gave Altibase high marks for the overall
performance of its operational DBMS, and for its support, professional services and ease of
use.
Broad use case applicability: In addition to applying its technology to unique billing scenarios
in the telecommunications sector and real-time flaw detection in manufacturing scenarios,
customers use Altibase HDB for analytics and storage of textual and rich-media content.
Product maturity: Over 85% of Altibase's reference customers reported no problems with its
product.
Cautions
Limited global penetration: Although successful in Asian markets, Altibase has yet to establish
much brand awareness or penetration elsewhere. The company has recently established
several partnerships with global organizations.
Shortage of large reference customers: Reference customers themselves stated that

Altibase's limited number of globally recognized reference customers made adoption more
difficult.
Narrow product focus: Altibase does not support alternative consistency models or support
multimodel capabilities, such as documents and graphs.
Basho Technologies
Newly headquartered in Seattle, Washington, U.S., Basho Technologies offers Riak, a distributed,
masterless key-value store. It is available as a free, open-source, Apache-licensed download, as an
Enterprise Edition, and as Riak CS, a multitenant cloud object store. Basho offers an Amazon
Simple Storage Service (S3) API and a cloud service.
Strengths
Resilience: Riak provides multi-data-center distribution and replication with automated

balancing; it does not fail upon server failure or network partition.
Rich features: Riak offers secondary indexes, MapReduce, support for JSON, tunable
consistency, multiple programming languages, Apache Solr support and pluggable storage
engines.
Growing paid customer base: Basho's customers include one-third of the Fortune 500
companies in North America and EMEA. It also has a strong community, which contributes to
the product.
Cautions
Single architecture focus: Riak's key-value-only architecture limits its broader adoption and
therefore restricts Basho to the Niche Players quadrant in the operational DBMS market.
Growing competition: Major vendors will continue to add key-value functionality (such as
Microsoft Azure Tables and Oracle NoSQL, both already available), which will create additional
competition for key-value use cases.
Recent changes to management team and reorganization of company: These suggest that
prospective customers should conduct a careful assessment before making major
commitments to Basho, even though its funding is strong and likely to grow.
Cloudera
Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, U.S., Cloudera offers Cloudera Enterprise, a commercial
version of Apache Hadoop for which Apache HBase provides the operational DBMS capabilities.
Cloudera Enterprise is available on-premises, as an appliance and through various cloud providers.
Strengths
Support for emerging use cases: 80% of Cloudera's reference customers use Cloudera
Enterprise for storing and processing machine-generated data, such as clickstreams and
sensor data. Using this observational data in transactions is now possible with HBase.
Scalability: Cloudera's reference customers repeatedly mentioned Cloudera Enterprise's ability

to scale to accommodate massive data volumes.
Stability and ecosystem: Cloudera has raised over $1.2 billion in venture funding and has
developed a large partner ecosystem that encompasses every relevant segment of the
enterprise software market.
Cautions
Challenging implementation and use: Reference customers scored Cloudera lowest of all the
vendors in this Magic Quadrant for ease of implementation. It also scored poorly for ease of
operation and programming, and support and documentation.
Lack of differentiation: Cloudera's operational DBMS, Apache HBase, is also offered by its
competitors.
Focus: The operational DBMS is only one component of Cloudera Enterprise. It may have to
compete for development and support resources with the rest of the product suite.
Clustrix
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, U.S., Clustrix offers a low-administration, shared-
nothing, distributed RDBMS, ClustrixDB, with automatic sharding and replication. It is available as
on-premises software and in the cloud. Clustrix also provides a managed database as a service.
Strengths
Performance: Clustrix provides extreme scale-out clustering for performance and availability.
Parallel SQL query execution across a cluster supports hybrid transaction/analytical processing
(HTAP) use cases.
Simplicity: The Clustrix database is designed to be largely self-managed, to reduce operational

complexity and total cost of ownership (TCO). Integration is simplified by the implementation of
the MySQL wire protocol.
E-commerce focus: Clustrix recently announced a new focus on applying its scale-out DBMS
to e-commerce applications that face scaling challenges.
Cautions
Lack of multimodel capabilities: ClustrixDB offers no support for data types beyond
traditional relational ones. More than half its reference customers have deployed another
operational DBMS to support nonrelational use cases.
Value challenges: Clustrix received low scores from its reference customers for overall value
for money. However, all reference customers were using the Clustrix appliance, not a software-
only product.
Poor early performance: Half the Magic Quadrant survey respondents who did not select
ClustrixDB stated that this was because its product performed poorly during a proof of concept
(POC) exercise.
Couchbase
Headquartered in Mountain View, California, U.S., Couchbase offers an open-source, distributed
multimodel (document and key value) NoSQL DBMS, Couchbase Server. It is offered in Community,
Enterprise and Lite Editions for on-premises, mobile or cloud deployment.
Strengths
Rich feature set: Couchbase's March 2014 release, Couchbase Server 2.5.1, offers in-memory
object caching, automatic partitioning, limited ACID transaction support, "eventual persistence"
(optional nonblocking writes to a caching layer), cross-data-center replication, a synchronized,
lightweight, embedded JSON DBMS, and MapReduce support. Couchbase also has a strong
technology road map.
Large customer base and revenue growth: Gartner estimates that Couchbase has over 450
customers in several industries. It also claims to have achieved 400% revenue growth in the
past year as its deal sizes have increased.
Financial and partner strength: Couchbase added a $60 million "E" venture funding round in
June 2014, which is helping to fund growth in its international presence. Couchbase has
established relationships with several hardware partners and leading system integrators.
Cautions
Quality: The number of responses from Couchbase's reference customers that reported bugs
or unreliable software was significantly above the average for this Magic Quadrant.
Missing functionality: Of the surveyed Couchbase customers, 48% reported some absent or
weak functionality. Some of these functions are on the road map, but not implemented yet.
Competition: Growing pressure from megavendors and MongoDB, especially in document-

oriented use cases, is likely as interest in these use cases grows.
DataStax
Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, U.S., DataStax provides DataStax Enterprise, a
commercial version of the open-source Apache Cassandra database. The product is downloadable
for on-premises operation, as well as through multiple cloud providers.
Strengths
Customer satisfaction: Reference customers scored DataStax above average for most
metrics, and awarded very high scores for overall DBMS performance and their experience of
doing business with this vendor.
Expanding functionality: DataStax has added in-memory transactions, search capabilities, and
support for analytics through Apache Spark and Apache Hadoop. Reference customers
identified administration and development tools as positives.
Vibrant community: DataStax has helped develop a robust open-source community around
Apache Cassandra through developer and enterprise conferences.
Cautions
Weak brand traction: Inquiries from Gartner clients mention DataStax only one-third as often
as the open-source project Apache Cassandra. The market has yet to consistently associate
DataStax with Apache Cassandra.
Challenging starts: 53% of the respondents who evaluated DataStax did not select it due to
poor performance during POC testing. This may indicate a poor fit between the characteristics
of DataStax Enterprise and the piloted use cases.
Quality between versions: Reference customers identified regression bugs when upgrading to
new versions. DataStax must continue to invest in improving its quality.
EnterpriseDB
Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., EnterpriseDB supports and markets the
PostgreSQL open-source DBMS, which it packages as an open-source community edition and as
Postgres Plus Advanced Server, including the Oracle Compatibility Feature.
Strengths
Community leadership: EnterpriseDB is the primary contributor to the PostgreSQL community.

It is responsible for many of the new features of PostgreSQL by contributing to JSON,
materialized views and partitioning.
Functionality: Gartner clients report that the functionality of EnterpriseDB's Postgres Plus
Oracle Compatibility Feature is now more than sufficient to run both mission-critical and non-
mission-critical applications. Recently, Infor, a major application platform independent software
vendor (ISV), added EnterpriseDB as a DBMS platform choice.
Stability and compatibility: Reference customers commend the compatibility with Oracle, the
stability of the DBMS and the product support.
Cautions
Open-source dilemma: EnterpriseDB must conform to community-led release cycles for its
community editions as they go through the open-source process. This can slow the process of
enhancing the base open-source product, but not the enterprise edition.
Market exposure: EnterpriseDB lacks breadth in its sales and marketing operations, which
restricts its ability to communicate its message to potential enterprise customers. According to
our survey, those that did not choose EnterpriseDB would have been more likely to choose it if
they had been more familiar with it.
Support and documentation: Reference customers reported a lack of local-language support

and weak documentation.
FairCom
FairCom, which was founded in 1979, is headquartered in Columbia, Missouri, U.S. and privately
owned. FairCom c-treeACE (Advanced Core Engine), one of the oldest NoSQL DBMSs, is a fully
ACID, key-value store with both NoSQL (Indexed Sequential Access Method [ISAM]) interfaces and
SQL, and supports transactions with an embedded or stand-alone engine.
Strengths
Strong technology: c-treeACE is a very strong ACID key-value NoSQL DBMS with SQL
capabilities and a long history of stability and innovation. Cross-platform support (Unix/
Linux/OS X), scalability and strong HA stand out among its capabilities.
Customer base: FairCom has a large customer base, encompassing both stand-alone and
embedded implementations. The OEM (embedded) base is itself large and produces
sustainable revenue that enables investment in research and development (approximately 25%
of revenue).
Satisfied customers: FairCom received some of the highest overall scores in our survey, with
high marks for customer support, professional services, performance, ease of doing business,
ease of operations and HA. Furthermore, over 75% of its reference customers reported no
problems with it.
Cautions
Marketing presence: FairCom lacks presence in the general DBMS market as it has a relatively
small marketing budget. Growth largely comes from within its existing customer base.
Small, largely unknown vendor: FairCom needs greater brand awareness to compete
effectively with other operational DBMS vendors, especially the better known NoSQL vendors.
Pricing: Reference customers identified FairCom's pricing model as an issue. We believe this is
because other NoSQL vendors offer an open-source pricing model.
IBM
Headquartered in Armonk, New York, U.S., IBM offers DB2 for z/OS, Linux, Unix, Microsoft
Windows and Informix. Depending on the DBMS, IBM offers multiple deployment models, from
hardware bundling and appliances to deployment in IBM's SmartCloud or third-party clouds.
Strengths
Performance and features: Survey participants rated IBM highly (among the top three
vendors) for HA/DR and overall performance. In-memory DB2 with Blu Acceleration reflects
IBM's early vision for in-memory DBMSs. NoSQL support includes a MongoDB-compatible
JSON API for document-style, cloud delivery via its Cloudant acquisition and via Bluemix, and
Resource Description Framework (RDF) for graph models.
Hardware integration: DB2 for z/OS dynamically routes analytics to the IBM DB2 Analytics
Accelerator (IDAA), creating an efficient HTAP architecture in a single environment and reducing
mainframe MIPS to cut operating charges. Other IBM products, such as IBM PureData System
for Transactions, use integrated hardware and software.
Global presence: IBM provides support, implementation and services in multiple vertical
markets. It has one of the IT industry's largest networks of software, hardware and service
partners.
Cautions
Sales execution: Like other megavendors, IBM is opaque in its reporting of revenue and
customer numbers, but Gartner's RDBMS market share figures indicate that IBM declined in
2013, losing second place in the market to Microsoft.
Complexity and pricing: For the second year in a row, survey participants scored IBM low for
pricing model suitability. Value for money was considered average. IBM is, however, expanding
its aggressive pricing, bundling and simplification efforts.
Software quality: Surveyed IBM customers rated it worst of all the vendors in this Magic
Quadrant for "software with bugs or unreliable software," and below average for ease of
implementation and ease of operation.
InterSystems
Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., InterSystems was founded in 1978. It markets
Cach, which was originally an object-oriented DBMS but is now a hybrid NoSQL/SQL transaction
engine. Cach has a strong position in the healthcare sector.
Strengths
Strong functionality: Cach supports a wide variety of data types with object, NoSQL and SQL
models, and has strong replication capabilities for HA/DR (as evidenced by strong scores from
its reference customers). Database management is automated, so it requires fewer staff
resources.
Focused execution: After establishing a solid product and a large ISV ecosystem that is
embraced by the healthcare industry, InterSystems is addressing other markets and achieving
early success. Strong execution in the healthcare sector is one reason why InterSystems has
moved into the Leaders quadrant this year.
Performance: InterSystems received some of the highest scores from reference customers for
the overall performance of Cach and for their experience of doing business with the company.
This confirms the impression Gartner gets from other interactions with its customers.
Cautions
Market perception: Although InterSystems has branched out from the healthcare sector, it is
still generally perceived as being a healthcare-only provider. It must pursue a stronger market
vision to move into the broader operational DBMS market.
Marketing: InterSystems is a midsize DBMS vendor with potential for continued growth,
especially as 60% of its reference customers plan to purchase more from it. Investment in sales
and marketing is necessary if InterSystems is to challenge the broader market leaders.
Pricing: InterSystems received relatively low scores from reference customers for the suitability
of its pricing model.
MapR
Headquartered in San Jose, California, MapR provides the MapR Distribution, including Apache
Hadoop. The M7 Enterprise Database Edition includes MapR-DB, an operational DBMS compatible
with Apache HBase. It is available on-premises and through various cloud providers.
Strengths
Reliability and performance: Reference customers gave MapR high scores for its HA/DR
capabilities and cluster stability. Several commended the performance of MapR's operational
DBMS.
Support for emerging use cases: 90% of MapR's reference customers use M7 to capture and
analyze machine-generated data, such as log files, clickstreams and connected device data.
Differentiation and focus: MapR differentiates itself from similar vendors through its
replacement of the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) with the MapR Data Platform, which
exposes Network File System access.
Cautions
Availability of skills: 60% of the survey respondents did not select MapR owing to concerns
about the availability of relevant skills within their organization. Additionally, MapR's scores for
ease of programming were well below average.
After-sale support: Reference customers gave MapR lower scores for its support and
documentation and for its professional services.
Complexity: Several reference customers remarked on the complexity inherent in deploying

MapR's product and the overall immaturity of its ecosystem.
MariaDB
MariaDB (formerly SkySQL) is headquartered in Espoo, Finland. It markets two products: MariaDB
10, an open-source, in-memory-capable, multimodel RDBMS based on, and fully compatible with,
Oracle MySQL; and MariaDB Enterprise, a commercially supported bundle with enterprise-targeted
add-on components. Both products are available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS Linux,
Ubuntu, Debian (which includes MariaDB in its distributions) and Microsoft Windows. The company
is headed by the creators of MySQL.
Strengths
Rich functionality: MariaDB offers multiple storage engines, tunable persistence, ACID support
with the InnoDB/XtraDB engine, graph storage with Open Query Graph (OQGraph), and support
for Apache Cassandra and JSON.
Value: In our survey of reference customers, MariaDB received one of the three highest scores
for value for money, as it did for suitability of pricing method. It also received one of the highest
scores for "no problems encountered."
Strong community and partner network: MariaDB is at the heart of a vibrant MySQL user
community and ecosystem. It partners with Linux distribution vendors, IBM, Fusion-io, and
organizations offering products for special-purpose storage engines, management, backup and
HA, as well as service providers.
Cautions
Increased competition: MariaDB is increasingly visible and will face more competition,
especially as Oracle's consent decree with the EU regarding MySQL expires in 2015
1
and
Oracle becomes more aggressive.
Scale: MariaDB's reference customers mostly quantified the size of their largest databases as
being a few hundred gigabytes at most. To compete at the high end against increasing
competition, MariaDB will require more terabyte-size reference customers.
Fragmented offerings: Several customers remarked on the number of separate pieces in

MariaDB's software stack; one noted there are "too many independent tools for managing
databases."
MarkLogic
Headquartered in San Carlos, California, U.S., MarkLogic offers a document store DBMS in
commercial Essential Enterprise, Global Enterprise and Mobile editions, and free, fully-featured
developer versions. Its software can be deployed in VMware and Amazon Web Services
environments, and, in collaboration with SGI, as the DataRaptor appliance. In 2014, MarkLogic
enters the Leaders quadrant for the first time.
Strengths
Features: MarkLogic's mature enterprise features are extended with tiered storage, HDFS
support, backup to Amazon S3, JSON, mobile replication, full text search, geospatial
capabilities, Sparql language support, Resource Description Framework (RDF) import support
and a converter for MongoDB. Its road map is rich and ambitious.
Solid customer base and partner network: We estimate that, following recent sizable wins in
the financial services sector, MarkLogic now has over 300 commercial customers. It also has a
sizable partner ecosystem, which should add momentum to its recent solid growth.
Customer relationship: Reference customers gave MarkLogic high marks for their experience
of doing business with it.
Cautions
Pricing challenges: Surveyed customers ranked MarkLogic low in terms of value for money
and suitability of pricing model. However, MarkLogic altered its pricing structure in 2013 and
lowered its prices, and Gartner expects to see this reflected in future surveys.
Difficult to use: Of the vendors evaluated in this Magic Quadrant, MarkLogic received the
lowest overall score from survey respondents for ease of programming. For continued growth,
delivery of planned product enhancements and programming language support is essential.
Geographic concentration on North America: Well over 80% of MarkLogic's customers are in
North America. Its overseas expansion efforts must succeed if it is to compete with global
providers.
McObject
Headquartered in Issaquah, Washington, U.S., McObject offers eXtremeDB version 5.0, a small-
footprint relational in-memory DBMS with extended array and vector support. Since 2001, millions
of copies of eXtremeDB have been deployed worldwide in embedded and real-time applications.
Strengths
Deployment and configuration choices: Typically embedded, eXtremeDB supports Microsoft

Windows, Linux, real-time OSs and the Java Native Interface. Clustered configurations are
available.
Functionality: eXtremeDB provides full ACID and tunable persistence, multiversion concurrency
control, 64-bit support and hybrid storage for scalability.
Partnerships: McObject has partnerships with EMC, Fusion-io, HP, IBM and others. Numerous
distributors market its product, and it has customers worldwide.
Cautions
Marketing: eXtremeDB's multiple engines and horizontal and vertical scalability remain little-
known in the market.
Limited targets: eXtremeDB is still seen as being marketed primarily for embedded
applications, although this is changing.
Customer satisfaction: Surveyed customers gave McObject low scores for HA/DR, ease of
implementation and ease of operation. These are not all new issues. Given the wide distribution
of eXtremeDB version 5.0, they reflect a failure to address continuing challenges.
Microsoft
Headquartered in Redmond, Washington, U.S., Microsoft markets its SQL Server DBMS for the
operational DBMS market, as well as Microsoft Azure SQL Database (a database platform as a
service) and Microsoft Azure Tables. Microsoft now has in-memory row-store technology for
transactions in SQL Server 2014.
Strengths
Market vision: Microsoft's market-leading vision consists of in-memory computing (SQL Server
2014 now has full transaction in-memory support), NoSQL (with a new document-store DBMS),
cloud offerings (both cloud-only and hybrid cloud), use of analytics in transactions (HTAP) and
support of mobility. Its vision for in-memory computing and putting the "cloud first" is ahead of
its competitors.
Strong execution: Microsoft SQL Server is an enterprisewide, mission-critical DBMS capable

of competing with products from the other large DBMS vendors. Gartner's 2013 market share
data shows Microsoft taking second place from IBM in terms of total DBMS revenue.
Performance and support: Reference customers were very positive, with the performance of
SQL Server, documentation, support, ease of installation and operation all rated highly. Only
7% reported problems with the DBMS overall.
Cautions
Lack of an appliance: Microsoft still lacks an appliance for transactions (one comparable to its
SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse appliance), whereas its major competitors (IBM, Oracle
and SAP) all offer one.
Market image: Although SQL Server is an enterprise-class DBMS, Microsoft continues to

struggle to dispel a perception of weakness in this area. Inquiries from Gartner clients
demonstrate a continuing perception that SQL Server is not used for mission-critical
enterprisewide applications a view that inhibits wider use of SQL Server as a primary,
enterprise-class DBMS.
HA/DR and pricing issues: Reference customers again found the pricing model for SQL Server
unacceptable (they gave it the lowest overall rating of any vendor in this Magic Quadrant) and
blamed the price changes that came with SQL Server 2012. Microsoft also received one of the
lowest overall scores for ease of implementing HA/DR.
MongoDB
Headquartered in New York City, New York and Palo Alto, California, U.S., MongoDB offers an
open-source, document-style DBMS, as well as MongoDB Enterprise, a commercial offering
available in various service tiers. MongoDB Enterprise is available through several cloud providers,
as well as on-premises.
Strengths
Customer satisfaction: MongoDB received high scores for every measurement of customer
satisfaction in the reference customer survey.
Improving enterprise capabilities: Recently announced partnerships with analytics and data
integration vendors enable MongoDB to tell a well-rounded information management story.
Operational and management support: Continued investment in the MongoDB Management

Service simplifies the running of a large cluster in terms of monitoring, backup and recovery,
and provisioning.
Cautions
Increasingly competitive landscape: Over the past year, several vendors have introduced
features that compete with MongoDB's core value proposition. MongoDB will face more
pressure to differentiate its offerings against entrenched competitors.
Growing pains: Although many reference customers reported that MongoDB is easy to get
started with, several reported challenges architecting MongoDB for large-scale deployments.
Trendiness with developers: MongoDB's popularity among developers means it is often

selected before application requirements are understood. This can result in a poor fit of DBMS
capabilities to the application.
Neo Technology
Neo Technology is headquartered in San Mateo, California, U.S. Neo4j is a native graph-style
NoSQL DBMS capable of handling transactions with ACID support and clustering for scalability and
HA. Neo became an incorporated company in 2011, but began developing its product much earlier,
in 2000. Neo4j, which was first used in a production environment in 2003, is offered as both an
open-source version and an Enterprise Edition.
Strengths
Native graph DBMS: Neo4j is a native graph-style DBMS (as opposed to an existing DBMS to
which graph capabilities have been added). It is engineered for performance with transactional
ACID capabilities in a single instance and offers tunable consistency across clusters for
scalability.
Growth: Since its founding, Neo has seen strong growth from both its open-source version and
Enterprise Edition.
Performance and ease of use: Reference customers identified performance, ease of operation
and implementation, and ease of doing business as strengths of Neo.
Cautions
Graph model: The graph DBMS model is difficult to understand, which lengthens the learning
curve. This problem is exacerbated by growing hype from other vendors about the introduction
of a graph model on a nongraph DBMS model.
Small vendor: Although the Neo4j product is over 10 years old and has grown consistently,
Neo remains a small vendor that faces all the issues of risk and stability associated with small
vendors.
Pricing model and HA/DR: Reference customers identified Neo's pricing model as an issue.
They also expressed dissatisfaction with the product's HA/DR capabilities.
NuoDB
Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., NuoDB provides an operational DBMS
designed to scale horizontally and elastically. In addition to being available in on-premises and
developer editions, NuoDB's product is available on Amazon Web Services.
Strengths
Delivery and support: NuoDB received top scores for its support and documentation,
professional services and ease of programming. We believe this is enabling it to win contracts
to replace other vendors in several locations.
Rapid deployment: On average, reference customers estimated it took less than five months to
deploy NuoDB's product in production environments.
Support for emerging use cases: 80% of NuoDB's reference customers use it for capturing
and analyzing machine-generated data, such as clickstreams, log files and connected device
data.
Cautions
Inconsistent experience: Although NuoDB received several top scores for service delivery,
documentation and support, reference customers that weren't full of praise were highly critical.
As a new vendor, NuoDB is still perfecting its service and support.
Slow momentum: NuoDB has not established a footprint in the developer community, which
commonly provides informal support and initiates tool development. Gartner clients have yet to
show interest in NuoDB during calls to our inquiry service.
Nascent partner ecosystem: NuoDB's partner program is still developing and has yet to
attract the necessary numbers to supplement the company's sales and implementation efforts.
Oracle
Headquartered in Redwood Shores, California, U.S., Oracle markets a complete set of DBMS
products for operational systems. These include Oracle Database, Oracle TimesTen, Oracle
Berkeley DB, Oracle NoSQL Database and MySQL. In addition to software, several of Oracle's
DBMSs are available in engineered systems (appliances).
Strengths
Broad range of offerings: Oracle has the broadest product portfolio in the market, covering
different DBMSs for multiple purposes (RDBMS, NoSQL, streaming data and mobile). Also, it
offers delivery in the cloud, on appliances and as stand-alone software. According to Gartner's
2013 market share numbers, Oracle remains in first place for total DBMS revenue market share.
Functionality: Oracle offers extensive functionality, with many new features (such as the JSON
data type and Temporal, which replaces Total Recall) and options such as the Oracle Database
In-Memory and Oracle Multitenant options, the latter moving multitenancy to the DBMS layer
and reducing support and maintenance. Oracle is also pioneering DBMS functionality on silicon,
with new SPARC M7 and T7 chips scheduled for delivery in 2015.
Solid performance and availability: Reference customers again identified Oracle's DBMS
performance and availability as primary reasons for implementation.
Cautions
Public perception of vision: Oracle's marketing continues to downplay its responses to market
trends (such as in-memory functionality) until it announces products. Oracle customers who use
Gartner's client inquiry service continue to show confusion and disillusionment in this regard, as
they have to make assumptions about Oracle's road maps and vision.
"Push back" on appliances: Users of Gartner's client inquiry service show a reluctance to
purchase products (such as engineered systems) due to perceived "lock in" to Oracle's
proprietary systems some functions, for example, are available only on Oracle hardware and
appliances, such as those in Exadata Storage Server software.
Low cost/value and bugs: Reference customers consider Oracle's products to be expensive
and therefore that they have the lowest value proposition. Oracle also received one of the
highest scores for bugs reported. Finally, in recent Gartner surveys,
2
Oracle received the lowest
score for ease of doing business.
Pivotal
Pivotal, a spinoff from EMC, is headquartered in San Francisco, California, U.S. It released Pivotal
GemFire XD in April 2014, combining GemFire, its distributed in-memory data grid, and SQLFire, its
distributed, memory-optimized SQL database, with Pivotal HD, its Hadoop distribution
incorporating Hawq (based on the Greenplum massively parallel processing [MPP] column-store
DBMS). It is available with Pivotal CF for cloud-based deployment.
Strengths
Rich functionality: By combining an in-memory transactional engine with Pivotal HD's Hawq
analytic SQL engine, Pivotal enables large HTAP-style combinations of real-time transaction
and event processing for closed-loop systems. It offers HA, active-active deployment and
rolling upgrade support.
Flexible usages: GemFire provides native object-oriented and REST interfaces; Hawq provides
SQL analytics. GemFire XD supports structured data, geospatial data, objects, JSON and key-
value pairs.
Strong global organization: Pivotal has the resources and installed base of EMC as key
assets. They include manufacturing, research, and presale and postsale support worldwide.
Cautions
Maturity: Integrating multiple products is a complex process, and GemFireXD has been on the
market for only a few months. Pivotal received the lowest survey scores for support and
documentation, and below-average scores for ease of implementation and ease of operation
though this is not unusual for an early-stage product. Its analytic appliance does not yet have
an operational counterpart.
Pricing and pricing model: Pivotal received very low survey scores for value for money and
suitability of pricing method, though its new simplified and flexible pricing model should help to
improve matters. Pivotal is one of the world's biggest startups, and its revenue will need to
grow rapidly to justify EMC's investment.
Market awareness: The number of inquiries received by Gartner regarding Pivotal products fell
to nearly zero after Pivotal was spun off, and has only recently begun to recover. Pivotal's use
of the EMC and VMware sales organization is starting to be felt, which is a positive sign.
SAP
Headquartered in Walldorf, Germany, SAP has several DBMS products that are used for transaction
systems: SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE), SAP SQL Anywhere and SAP Hana. Both SAP ASE
and SAP SQL Anywhere are available as software only, while SAP Hana is marketed as an
appliance.
Strengths
Leading vision: SAP remains a leader with its vision for HTAP: It now supports most of the SAP
applications that run on Hana on a single in-memory database used for transactions and
analytics. SAP reports that over 1,000 customers have purchased part or all of SAP Suite on
Hana in just over one year of general availability, which underlines the market's interest in
HTAP.
Strong DBMS offerings: SAP has seen strong growth in SAP Hana, SAP ASE (now certified for
SAP applications) is growing strongly, and SAP SQL Anywhere continues to lead the mobility
market in terms of functionality.
Performance: Reference customers again identified performance (scalability and reliability) as a

major strength for SAP, awarding it one of the highest scores. Additionally, SAP received the
highest score for ease of operation across its DBMS products.
Cautions
Marketing communications: Interactions with users of Gartner's client inquiry service confirm
confusion over SAP's messages about how its DBMS products integrate, where each product
can be used, what SAP Hana can and cannot do, and most importantly, whether SAP Hana will
be required in the future.
Lack of skills: As inquiries from Gartner clients make clear, skills to support SAP Hana remain
scarce in the market.
HA/DR problems: SAP's reference customers (and especially users of SAP Hana) reported the
lowest level of satisfaction with their vendor's HA/DR capabilities. For the second year, SAP
also received the lowest score for clients' experience of doing business with it; similarly, in
recent Gartner conference surveys,
2
SAP received the second-lowest score for ease of doing
business.
TmaxData
Headquartered in Bundang-gu, South Korea, TmaxData provides Tibero, an SQL RDBMS featuring
various clustering options, integrated encryption and compatibility with other vendors' DBMS
products.
Strengths
Satisfied customers: Reference customers scored TmaxData above average on most

satisfaction measures, and substantially above average for ease of implementation.
Support for mixed workloads: Tibero Active Cluster (TAC) is aimed at transactional workloads
using shared disk clustering, while Tibero InfiniData operates in a shared-nothing environment
and integrates with Hadoop for analytics workloads.
Several pricing options: Tibero is available in three editions. Each offers different core/
processor pricing options and features.
Cautions
Limited geographic traction: Despite opening offices in several countries in 2013 and 2014,
TmaxData has yet to gain significant traction outside South Korea.
Uneven postsale support: Reference customers gave TmaxData low scores for support and
documentation, and for professional services.
Software quality: Although no problems were reported consistently, only half of TmaxData's
reference customers reported encountering no problems with its products.
VoltDB
Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., VoltDB markets an in-memory row-store
operational RDBMS that is increasingly available via vertical-market partners. VoltDB version 4.3,
released in May 2014, is an open-source DBMS available as software only.
Strengths
Technology and vision: Substantial SQL-92 functionality, in-memory DBMS architecture and
precompiled Java stored procedures drive VoltDB's high performance in support of HTAP use
cases. Tunable consistency and JSON support have been added to give developers more
flexibility.
Customer satisfaction: VoltDB, the only open-source in-memory DBMS vendor, received
above-average scores from reference customers for suitability of pricing and professional
services.
Performance and value: As expected for an in-memory DBMS vendor, VoltDB received high
scores from reference customers for overall performance of the product and value for the price
paid.
Cautions
Competitive challenges: VoltDB's small, U.S.-centric sales organization and modest

ecosystem are growing, but their small size still limits its ability to reach new customers.
Feature gaps: Although VoltDB customers are overwhelmingly on the newest release, its
reference customers identified "some absent or weak functionality."
Revenue model: VoltDB's revenue remains relatively modest according to Gartner's estimates.
Extra funding will be needed to achieve the needed growth. A recent $8 million of Series "B"
round venture capital funding should help.
Vendors Added and Dropped
We review and adjust our inclusion criteria for Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes as markets
change. As a result of these adjustments, the mix of vendors in any Magic Quadrant or
MarketScope may change over time. A vendor's appearance in a Magic Quadrant or MarketScope
one year and not the next does not necessarily indicate that we have changed our opinion of that
vendor. It may be a reflection of a change in the market and, therefore, changed evaluation criteria,
or of a change of focus by that vendor.
Added
Cloudera: This Hadoop distribution vendor now supports operational transactions through the
use of Apache HBase.
FairCom: This vendor sells a NoSQL DBMS.
MapR: This Hadoop distribution vendor now supports operational transactions through the use
of Apache HBase.
MariaDB: This vendor offers a MySQL-compatible, open-source RDBMS.
Neo Technology: This vendor's graph DBMS engine supports transactions.
Pivotal: This vendor's platform has an in-memory DBMS to support transactions across
multiple sources of data.
TmaxData: This South Korean vendor, which also competes in North America, offers an
RDBMS.
Dropped
Orient Technologies: This vendor failed to meet the inclusion criteria.

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
To be included in this Magic Quadrant, vendors and products had to meet the following criteria.
Software availability: Vendors had to have DBMS software generally available for licensing or
supported download for at least a year, as of 1 July 2014. Products that have been commercially
available for over 10 years but have not grown in terms of revenue at or near the market rate for
several years are excluded.
Software releases: We use the most recent generally available release of the software to evaluate
current technical capabilities. We do not consider beta, "early access," "technology preview,"
"ramp up" or other releases that are not generally available. As regards reference customers and
their survey responses, all versions currently used in production are considered. When older
versions are in use, we consider whether later releases may have addressed any reported issues,
but also the rate at which customers move to newer versions.
Feature availability: Product evaluations include technical capabilities, features and functions
present in the product or supported for download through midnight, U.S. Eastern Daylight Time on
1 July 2014. Capabilities, product features and functions released after this date could be included
at Gartner's discretion and in a manner Gartner that deemed appropriate to ensure the quality of
this publication. We also considered how such later releases could affect the end-user experience.
Customers and revenue: Vendors had to generate a minimum of $20 million U.S. dollars in
verifiable annual software revenue or have at least 100 verifiable and distinct customer
organizations with operational DBMSs in production. In addition, each vendor had to identify a
minimum of 10 reference customers who would respond to Gartner's approved reference customer
survey (for this year's Magic Quadrant, the survey questionnaire was in English only). Revenue can
be from licenses, support and/or maintenance. Gartner may include additional vendors based on
undisclosed references in cases of known use for classified but unspecified use cases.
Support: The vendor had to provide support for its operational DBMS product(s). We also
considered products that control or participate in the engineering of open-source DBMSs and their
support. We required that a DBMS meet Gartner's definition of a DBMS (see Note 1).
Services: Vendors participating in the operational DBMS market had to demonstrate their ability to
deliver the necessary services to support transaction systems via the establishment and delivery of
support processes, professional services and/or committed resources and budget.
Geographical availability: Vendors had to demonstrate support for operational DBMS customers in
at least two of the following major regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East
and Africa, and Asia/Pacific.
Excluded products: Product categories excluded from this Magic Quadrant (see also Market
Definition/Description) are:
Embedded-only DBMS products
Data warehouse-only DBMS products
DBMS products available only as a cloud service
Prerelational DBMS products
Graph-only DBMS products
Data grid products
Complex-event processing or streaming-data engines

Evaluation Criteria
Ability to Execute
The Ability to Execute criteria are primarily concerned with vendors' capabilities and maturity.
Criteria under this heading also consider products' portability, ability to scale, and ability to run in
different operating environments (giving the customer a range of options). Ability to Execute criteria
are crucial to customers' satisfaction and success with a product, so reference customer interviews
and survey responses are weighted heavily throughout.
Product or service includes the technical attributes of the DBMS(s), as well as features and
functions built specifically to manage the DBMS when used as a platform for transactions,
interactions and observations. We include HA/DR, performance and scalability, support for multiple
deployment options (such as virtualization, cloud and hybrid cloud/on-premises), and support for
multiple programming languages and new hardware and memory models. These attributes are
evaluated across a variety of database sizes and application workloads. We also consider the
automated management, tools and resources necessary to manage a database environment,
especially as it scales to more complex application workloads. Finally, we consider the flexibility of
the DBMS to incorporate new data types, application types and new requirements for distributing
data across multiple servers and geographies.
Overall viability includes corporate aspects such as the skills of personnel, financial stability,
investment in research and development, and mergers and acquisitions. It also covers the
management's ability to respond to market changes and the company's ability to weather market
difficulties (crucial for long-term survival). Vendors are further evaluated on their ability to establish
dominance in meeting specific market demands.
Sales execution/pricing covers the price/performance and pricing models of the DBMS products,
and the ability of the sales force to manage accounts (based on feedback from interviews, surveys
and interactions with users of Gartner's client inquiry service). We also consider the market share of
the DBMS products. Also considered are the diversity and innovativeness of packaging and pricing
models, including the ability to promote, sell and support the products globally.
Market responsiveness/track record includes the diversity of the vendor's offerings in response
to changing market demands for example, its ability and flexibility to offer appliances, cloud
deployment, new data types and new programming requirements. We consider general market
perceptions of the vendor and its products. We assess both the vendor's ability to adapt to market
changes during the previous 18 months and its flexibility in response to market dynamics over a
longer period.
Marketing execution evaluates such activities as lead generation, including traditional methods
and Internet-enabled trial software delivery, and the execution of channel development through
partnering agreements (including coseller, comarketing and colead management arrangements).
Also considered are the vendor's coordination and delivery of education and marketing events
throughout the world and across vertical markets, and the creation and support of "community"
activities that help to raise awareness and develop skills among buyers and prospective customers.
Customer experience evaluations are based primarily on reference customer surveys and
interviews conducted for this report, as well as discussions with users of Gartner's inquiry service
during the previous six quarters. We consider the vendor's track record of POCs, customers'
perceptions of its product(s), and customers' loyalty to the vendor (this reflects their tolerance of its
practices and can indicate their level of satisfaction). Additionally, customer input regarding the
applicability of products to limited use cases can be significant, depending on the success or failure
of the vendor's approach in the market.
Operations covers the alignment of the vendor's organization, as well as whether and how this
enhances its ability to deliver. Aspects considered include field delivery of appliances,
manufacturing (including the identification of diverse geographic cost advantages),
internationalization of the product (in light of both technical and legal requirements) and adequate
staffing.
Table 1. Ability to Execute Evaluation Criteria
Evaluation Criteria Weighting
Product or Service High
Overall Viability Low
Sales Execution/Pricing Medium
Market Responsiveness/Track Record High
Marketing Execution Medium
Customer Experience High
Operations Low
Completeness of Vision
Completeness of Vision encompasses a vendor's abilities to understand the functional capabilities
needed to support operational environments, to develop a product strategy that meets the market's
requirements, to comprehend overall market trends, and to influence or lead the market when
necessary. A visionary leadership role is necessary for the long-term viability of both product and
company. A vendor's vision may be demonstrated and improved by its willingness to extend
its influence throughout the market by working with independent third-party application software
vendors that deliver both additional functionality for the operational environment and commercial
off-the-shelf software. A successful vendor will be able not only to understand the competitive
landscape of operational transactions but also to shape the future of this field.
Market understanding assesses a vendor's ability to understand the market and shape its growth
and vision. In addition to examining a vendor's core competencies in this market, we considered its
awareness of new trends, such as the increasing sophistication of end users, growing scalability
needs (especially across server clusters), the cloud as a platform for DBMSs, the demand for in-
memory computing and HTAP, use of new consistency models, and the growing desire to use data
structures other than relational ones.
Marketing strategy refers to a vendor's marketing themes, research-and-development focus, and
ability to choose appropriate target markets and third-party software vendor partnerships to
enhance the marketability of its products. For example, we considered whether the vendor
encourages and supports ISVs in its efforts to support the DBMS in native mode (via, for instance,
comarketing or coadvertising with "value added" partners). This criterion includes the vendor's
responses to the market trends identified above and any offers of alternative solutions in its
marketing materials and plans.
Sales strategy assesses how a vendor designs and targets its channels and partnerships
developed to assist with selling. This is especially important for younger organizations, as a good
sales strategy can enable them to greatly increase their market presence, while maintaining lower
sales costs (for example, through free downloadable community editions, coselling and joint
advertising). This criterion also covers a vendor's strategy for communicating its vision to its field
organization and, therefore, to clients and prospective customers. Also included are pricing
innovations and strategies, such as new licensing arrangements and cloud-based models for elastic
provisioning to support peak demand.
Offering (product) strategy covers the design of product packaging and deployment options,
including the availability of cloud versions, developer editions and appliances based on the vendor's
DBMS. Vendors should demonstrate a diverse strategy that enables customers to choose what they
need to build a complete solution for an operational environment. Also covered are partners'
offerings that include technical, marketing, sales and support integration.
Business model covers how a vendor's model of a target market combines with its products and
pricing, and whether the vendor can generate profits with this model, judging from its packaging
and offerings. Additionally, we consider reviews of publicly announced earnings and forward-
looking statements relating to an intended market focus. For private companies and to supplement
publicly available information, we use proxies for earnings and new customer growth, such as the
number of Gartner clients indicating interest in, or awareness of, a vendor's products during calls to
our inquiry service.
Vertical/industry strategy affects a vendor's ability to understand its clients. Aspects such as
vertical-market sales teams and partnerships with vertical-market service providers are considered.
Innovation assesses vendors' approach to developing new functionality that aligns with its market
and offering strategies by allocating and managing research-and-development spending and
leading the market in new directions. Uses of new storage and hardware models are key examples
of this.
Geographic strategy, including a vendor's worldwide reach, is assessed by considering its plan to
use its own resources in different regions, as well as those of subsidiaries and partners. This
criterion considers a vendor's plan for supporting clients throughout the world, around the clock,
and in many languages. Anticipation of regional and global economic conditions is also considered.
Table 2. Completeness of Vision Evaluation Criteria
Evaluation Criteria Weighting
Market Understanding High
Marketing Strategy Medium
Sales Strategy Medium
Offering (Product) Strategy High
Business Model Low
Vertical/Industry Strategy Medium
Innovation High
Geographic Strategy Low
Quadrant Descriptions
Leaders
Leaders generally demonstrate the most support for a broad range of operational applications,
based on support for a wide range of data types and large numbers of concurrent users. These
vendors demonstrate consistent customer satisfaction and strong customer support. Many have
competed in this market for many years, and have built a wide partner ecosystem for their products.
Hence, Leaders generally represent the lowest risk for customers in the areas of performance,
scalability, reliability and support. As the market's demands change, so Leaders demonstrate strong
vision in support not only of the market's current needs but also of emerging trends. Finally, the
messaging, product research and development, and delivery of leaders are in line with today's
market and with new trends in both DBMS software and hardware technology.
Challengers
Challengers are stable vendors with strong, established offerings but a relative lack of vision. It is
normal for some vendors to have high scores for execution but to lag in terms of the adoption levels
and vision needed for leadership. Challengers normally show strong corporate viability and financial
stability, and demonstrate strong customer support. However, they lack the vision to support some
of the new trends in the operational DBMS market, such as support for interaction and observation
data in transactions, or a road map for moving toward in-memory DBMS capabilities. Although they
may be lacking in relation to some of the market's innovative concepts, Challengers offer stability,
simplicity of installation and support, and strong performance. As with the Niche Players, Gartner
considers support of a limited number of data types and hardware models as evidence of limited
vision.
Visionaries
Visionaries take a forward-thinking approach to managing the hardware, software and end-user
aspects of an operational DBMS environment. Visionaries typically have innovative ideas for new
functionality and advanced use of new hardware. They have the requisite number of production
customers, but lack the market momentum of Leaders. In this market, Niche Players are often
young, small and innovative vendors with great new ideas that are spurring on the more mature
vendors and the market in general.
Niche Players
Niche Players generally deliver a highly specialized product with limited market appeal. Frequently,
a Niche Player provides an exceptional operational DBMS product, but is isolated or limited to a
specific end-user community, region or industry. Although the solution itself may not have
limitations, adoption is limited. Niche Players contains vendors from several categories:
Those with an operational DBMS product that lacks a strong or a large customer base
Those with an operational DBMS that lacks the breadth of functionality of those of Leaders
Those with new operational DBMS products that lack general customer acceptance or the
proven functionality to move beyond niche status
Niche Players typically offer smaller, specialized solutions that are used for specific operational and
transactional applications, depending on the client's needs.
Context
At one time, Gartner viewed the online transaction processing (OLTP) DBMS market as very mature,
with few new entrants to challenge the status quo. However, in recent years, the market has
changed rapidly, which prompted our redefinition of it in 2013 as the operational DBMS market (see
"The OLTP DBMS Market Becomes the Operational DBMS Market"). With the introduction of
NoSQL and Hadoop in support of unstructured data in transactions and the viable use of in-
memory computing, many organizations are beginning to use these new DBMS engines for specific
use cases, such as global scalability of Web applications.
As there are now many new entrants, including small and less mature vendors, the market appears
to be split in two, although compared with the situation in 2013, the space between its two groups
has reduced. In one group are the innovative new vendors. In the other are the traditional, strong,
mature leaders. The reason for most of the vendors being below the midline in the Magic Quadrant
is that they support only one or two of the DBMS models (which include key value, graph, relational,
table-style and document-style), and only one or two of the multiple data types (such as structured
[relational], unstructured, XML, interaction and observation). The Leaders support a wide range of
models and data types in a scalable, highly available environment, which is one reason for the
considerable space between several of them and the newer vendors.
Another major focus for vendors in this market is support for in-memory computing. Most vendors
are beginning to add this functionality to their DBMSs, some with an in-memory-only model. Due to
its inherent speed, in-memory computing is becoming necessary for the processing of interaction
and observation data integrated into transactions. Most of the traditional vendors have introduced
an in-memory DBMS, generally in support of analytics. This will eventually become the preferred
model for all DBMSs. The one form of memory not well adapted to data is flash when used as
addressable memory and not as a form of fast disk replacement. NAND flash is slower than DRAM,
but it is more efficient when used as addressable memory than as a disk block cache.
As the new vendors mature and offer a wider range of functions, the operational DBMS market will
become more homogeneous and commoditized (see "IT Market Clock for Database Management
Systems, 2014").
This Magic Quadrant deals with the key information management capabilities for transaction
processing. It should therefore interest anyone involved in defining, purchasing, building or
managing a transaction-processing environment notably, CIOs, CTOs, infrastructure managers,
database and application architects, database administrators and IT purchasing managers.
For this Magic Quadrant, we based our analysis on information gathered from interactions with
Gartner clients over the past 12 months and our survey of the vendors' reference customers,
performed during July and August 2014.
3
We also considered earlier information and any news
about vendors' products, customers and finances that arose during the analysis time frame.
Market Overview
The OLTP DBMS market, from which the operational DBMS market evolved, was very mature in the
early years of the 21st century. However, as Internet usage and availability grew, so did the
applications necessary to support the associated, growing infrastructure. Consequently, over the
past five years, many new vendors have entered this market with products to support the
specialized applications required by a new and global business arena.
Many drivers of innovation are widely accepted. New forms of data that were previously difficult
or impossible to capture have become available from connected devices (the Internet of Things),
such as smart meter data and machine or device data; we call this "observation data." The
pervasive use of personal devices and social media has also become a source of social- and
business-related data; we call this "interaction data." These new forms of data must now be used
not only for analytics, but also within transactions. Data from vendors' reference customers
confirms this change, as 75% of the respondents to our survey use interaction data in transactions,
and over 50% use observation data in transaction processing.
3
In terms of hardware, new devices, servers, and networking, memory and storage options (to name
but a few) have proliferated. These both enable and require new ways to process the data they
create or support. For in-memory DBMSs, the amount of memory available on individual servers is
already reaching 32TB to 64TB. Organizations need to capture both structured and unstructured
data for use in transactions. Furthermore, they must use the data from transactions, observations
and interactions in real time for decision processing as part of, not separately from, the
transactions. This process is the definition of HTAP (for further details, see "Hype Cycle for In-
Memory Computing, 2014").
To support the new operational DBMS market, many new vendors have emerged with innovative
DBMS engines that support transactions on a global scale, real-time transactions integrated with
analytics, streaming data transactions, and more. These new vendors are single-minded in terms of
direction. Once their ideas are proven, more mature vendors will feel obliged to adopt some of this
technology.
The new vendors' activities include the use of JSON for data structures in applications; new and
less restrictive forms of consistency (allowing for eventual consistency); larger amounts of DRAM for
in-memory DBMSs; and new file structures that differ from relational ones, such as those for key-
value and document-store file systems. Many of these vendors support these NoSQL systems for
simplicity, agile development, support of unstructured data types, scalability and performance.
Already, an increasing number of mature DBMS vendors are adopting these technologies in their
systems.
Although we exclude cloud-only delivery from this Magic Quadrant, the cloud is being widely
adopted as a delivery platform in the operational DBMS market. Over the next few years, we expect
most vendors to offer cloud versions of their DBMS products. These will range from simple offerings
of support for infrastructure as a service and cloud hosting, to full cloud DBMS platforms with
elasticity and multitenant capabilities. As the operational DBMS market matures, cloud deployment
and especially hybrid deployment will become a criterion of importance as it offers users an
additional platform choice.
Gartner Recommended Reading
Some documents may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription.
"How Markets and Vendors Are Evaluated in Gartner Magic Quadrants"
"The OLTP DBMS Market Becomes the Operational DBMS Market"
"IT Market Clock for Database Management Systems, 2014"
"Market Share: All Software Markets, Worldwide, 2013"
"Who's Who in In-Memory DBMSs"
"Market Guide for NoSQL DBMSs"
"Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management Systems"
"Hype Cycle for In-Memory Computing, 2014"
"Hype Cycle for Big Data, 2014"
"Hype Cycle for Information Infrastructure, 2014"
Evidence
1
Oracle's Letter to the EU Concerning MySQL
After an antitrust investigation, the European Commission approved Oracle's acquisition of Sun
Microsystems, including MySQL, on 21 January 2010. Wikileaks subsequently published cables
indicating that the Obama administration applied pressure to the EU to approve the deal.
Concerns about the MySQL acquisition had been addressed in Oracle's 14 December 2009 pledges
to customers, which were to extend for five years thus expiring in early 2015. Oracle's pledges
included commitments to maintain certain APIs, extensions of licenses to then-current licensees,
continued use of GPL licensing, and others. The expiration of these commitments may change the
nature of Oracle's relationships with a number of hardware and software vendors, as well as its
posture regarding product investment, support for purchasing requirements, and other aspects of
MySQL's business model.
2
Conference Survey Data
A survey is run annually at Gartner's IT Financial Procurement and Asset Management summits,
held in Orlando, Florida, U.S. and London, U.K. The same survey was also conducted at Gartner's
Annual Symposium 2013, in Orlando and Barcelona, Spain. Respondents were asked to "Please
rate the vendor(s) with whom your organization has had negotiations within the past 12 months.
Please rate vendors based upon the ease of doing business with them." The rating scale was from 1
(not at all easy) to 7 (extremely easy).
3
Reference Customer Survey
In addition to hundreds of interactions with users of Gartner's client inquiry service, as part of the
Magic Quadrant process we sought the views of vendors' reference customers via an online survey.
The survey included requests for feedback about vendor maturity (for example, understanding of
industries, provision of innovation, responsiveness to new requests, TCO and pricing) and product
capabilities (for example, flexibility in data modeling, support for data quality, UI support for data
stewardship, internal workflow and support for multiple architectural styles). Over 400 organizations,
representing all the featured vendors' reference bases, responded to the survey, which was held in
July and August 2014. The reference customers were generally pleased with their vendors and
products, but gave relatively low marks in some areas, which we have detailed in the analysis of
each vendor. Some of the issues may be historical, because not all organizations are on the latest
product versions.
Note 1 Definition of a Database Management System (DBMS)
Gartner defines a DBMS as a complete software system used to define, create, manage, update
and query a database, by which we mean an organized collection of data that may be structured in
multiple formats and stored in some form of storage medium (which can include hard-disk drives,
flash memory, solid-state drives and even DRAM). Additionally, DBMSs should provide interfaces
to, and govern the performance of, independent programs and tools that enable a variety of
concurrent workload types.
Note 2 Definitions of Interaction Data and Observation Data
These two new classes of data derive from social and mobile interactions and observations:
Interaction data is the fabric of information in the social sphere, generated from one or more
people interacting with devices and one another. Interactions are associated with social
phenomena: new sources, such as tweets, Facebook posts and weblogs, that record
customers' activity and behavior. They are also associated with more traditional, but formerly
little-used, types of data, such as email archives, content repositories, and voice and video
recordings.
Observation data is generated by connected devices, which enable and document much of the
impact of mobile technology and other new use cases. Examples are geolocation data in
Internet Protocol data records, data from the Internet of Things, and extensions of the call data
records that were so important to early mobile phone providers' efforts to model customer
behavior. This data enables a new class of applications that provides and restores context for
simple transactions.
Note 3 Operational DBMS Workloads
For the purposes of this evaluation, workloads that we expect to be managed by operational
DBMSs include batch/bulk loading, real-time or continuous data loading, concurrent online and
Web-based new and update transactions, operational reporting, and management of externally
distributed processes such as "look aside" queries. Operational DBMS products must provide the
ability to prioritize these multiple workloads to ensure SLAs are met when they operate
concurrently.
Note 4 Definition of a DBMS Appliance
Gartner defines a DBMS appliance as a preinstalled DBMS sold on hardware specifically configured
and balanced for optimized performance with an included storage subsystem. In addition, a single
point of contact for support of the appliance is available from the vendor.
Evaluation Criteria Definitions
Ability to Execute
Product/Service: Core goods and services offered by the vendor for the defined
market. This includes current product/service capabilities, quality, feature sets, skills
and so on, whether offered natively or through OEM agreements/partnerships as
defined in the market definition and detailed in the subcriteria.
Overall Viability: Viability includes an assessment of the overall organization's financial
health, the financial and practical success of the business unit, and the likelihood that
the individual business unit will continue investing in the product, will continue offering
the product and will advance the state of the art within the organization's portfolio of
products.
Sales Execution/Pricing: The vendor's capabilities in all presales activities and the
structure that supports them. This includes deal management, pricing and negotiation,
presales support, and the overall effectiveness of the sales channel.
Market Responsiveness/Record: Ability to respond, change direction, be flexible and
achieve competitive success as opportunities develop, competitors act, customer
needs evolve and market dynamics change. This criterion also considers the vendor's
history of responsiveness.
Marketing Execution: The clarity, quality, creativity and efficacy of programs designed
to deliver the organization's message to influence the market, promote the brand and
business, increase awareness of the products, and establish a positive identification
with the product/brand and organization in the minds of buyers. This "mind share" can
be driven by a combination of publicity, promotional initiatives, thought leadership,
word of mouth and sales activities.
Customer Experience: Relationships, products and services/programs that enable
clients to be successful with the products evaluated. Specifically, this includes the ways
customers receive technical support or account support. This can also include ancillary
tools, customer support programs (and the quality thereof), availability of user groups,
service-level agreements and so on.
Operations: The ability of the organization to meet its goals and commitments. Factors
include the quality of the organizational structure, including skills, experiences,
programs, systems and other vehicles that enable the organization to operate
effectively and efficiently on an ongoing basis.
Completeness of Vision
Market Understanding: Ability of the vendor to understand buyers' wants and needs
and to translate those into products and services. Vendors that show the highest
degree of vision listen to and understand buyers' wants and needs, and can shape or
enhance those with their added vision.
Marketing Strategy: A clear, differentiated set of messages consistently
communicated throughout the organization and externalized through the website,
advertising, customer programs and positioning statements.
Sales Strategy: The strategy for selling products that uses the appropriate network of
direct and indirect sales, marketing, service, and communication affiliates that extend
the scope and depth of market reach, skills, expertise, technologies, services and the
customer base.
Offering (Product) Strategy: The vendor's approach to product development and
delivery that emphasizes differentiation, functionality, methodology and feature sets as
they map to current and future requirements.
Business Model: The soundness and logic of the vendor's underlying business
proposition.
Vertical/Industry Strategy: The vendor's strategy to direct resources, skills and
offerings to meet the specific needs of individual market segments, including vertical
markets.
Innovation: Direct, related, complementary and synergistic layouts of resources,
expertise or capital for investment, consolidation, defensive or pre-emptive purposes.
Geographic Strategy: The vendor's strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to
meet the specific needs of geographies outside the "home" or native geography, either
directly or through partners, channels and subsidiaries as appropriate for that
geography and market.
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Gartner Magic Quadrant For Operational Database Management Systems

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G00261660

Magic Quadrant for Operational Database

Performance: Aerospike's reference customers supported its claims of high performance by

Competitive positioning: With an increasing number of vendors supporting in-memory

HA/DR and ease of programming: Aerospike's reference customers identified difficulties in

Shortage of large reference customers: Reference customers themselves stated that

Resilience: Riak provides multi-data-center distribution and replication with automated

Scalability: Cloudera's reference customers repeatedly mentioned Cloudera Enterprise's ability

Simplicity: The Clustrix database is designed to be largely self-managed, to reduce operational

Competition: Growing pressure from megavendors and MongoDB, especially in document-

Community leadership: EnterpriseDB is the primary contributor to the PostgreSQL community.

Support and documentation: Reference customers reported a lack of local-language support

Complexity: Several reference customers remarked on the complexity inherent in deploying

Fragmented offerings: Several customers remarked on the number of separate pieces in

Deployment and configuration choices: Typically embedded, eXtremeDB supports Microsoft

Strong execution: Microsoft SQL Server is an enterprisewide, mission-critical DBMS capable

Market image: Although SQL Server is an enterprise-class DBMS, Microsoft continues to

Operational and management support: Continued investment in the MongoDB Management

Trendiness with developers: MongoDB's popularity among developers means it is often

Performance: Reference customers again identified performance (scalability and reliability) as a

Satisfied customers: Reference customers scored TmaxData above average on most

Competitive challenges: VoltDB's small, U.S.-centric sales organization and modest

FairCom: This vendor sells a NoSQL DBMS.

MariaDB: This vendor offers a MySQL-compatible, open-source RDBMS.

Neo Technology: This vendor's graph DBMS engine supports transactions.

Orient Technologies: This vendor failed to meet the inclusion criteria.

Embedded-only DBMS products

Data warehouse-only DBMS products

DBMS products available only as a cloud service

Prerelational DBMS products

Graph-only DBMS products

Data grid products

Complex-event processing or streaming-data engines

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