Netezza TwinFin Architecture

Netezza is a data warehouse and big data analytics appliance. It uses Asymmetric Massively Parallel Processing (AMPP) architecture, which combines an SMP front end with a shared MPP back end for query processing. Netezza is a result of  database integration , processing engine and storage in a system. Netezza architecture resembles Hadoop cluster design in may ways. e.g. Distribution, active-passive node, data storing methods, replications etc

Check out:

• Key Features of Netezza Appliances
• Netezza Striper Architecture: N2001 Technical Specification
• Netezza Mako Architecture: N3001 Technical Specification
• Commonly used Netezza Utilities

Related book: Netezza underground – This book is more into case studies rather than technical but can give fair idea about how to implement the solutions.

Netezza has four major components:

Read:

• How to install vmware player and Netezza Emulator on ubuntu

Netezza Architecture – Hosts

The Netezza hosts are high-performance Linux servers that are set up in an active-passive mode for high availability. In case of active server failure, the passive host will take over the processing tasks. It just requires very small time to passive node to take over. The active host is an interface to external tools and client applications such BI, ETL, JDBC, ODBC tools. Client submits SQL requests via ODBC/JDBC. Number of tools such as Aginity, Squirrel, nzsql utility are used to submit SQL query to Netezza host. The  Netezza compiles them into executable code segments called snippets (usually C/C++ codes) , and creates optimised query plans by distributing the snippets across to all the nodes for execution. FPGA fetches the required data and snippet execution takes place.

Field Programmable Ggate Arrays – FPGA

The FPGA is a Netezza proprietary hardware tool developed to filters out unwanted data as early as possible when SQL query is submitted to hosts. The data will be eliminated as early as when reading from disks. This process of data elimination removes IO bottlenecks and frees up downstream components such as the CPU, memory and network from processing extra data hence notably improves performance. The FPGA always rely on the zone maps to eliminate the unwanted data. Zone maps are created to every column in the tables during certain Netezza operations.

• Also Read:How FPGA Works on Netezza SQL Query ?

Snippet Blades (S-Blades)

S-Blades are intelligent processing nodes that make up the MPP engine of the Netezza data warehouse appliance. Each S-Blade is an independent server that contains powerful multi-core CPUs, multi-engine FPGAs and gigabytes of RAM, all working in parallel to deliver high performance. FPGA in each s-blade is important Netezza architecture hardware that improves the performance.

• Check out: Working with zone maps

Disk Enclosure

Finally, other important Netezza architecture hardware is high performance Disks.  The disk enclosures contain high density and high performance disks that are RAID protected. Each disk contains a slice of the data in a database tables. Either hash or random algorithm will be used by host to distributes the data across all the disks evenly. A mirror copy of each slice of data is maintained on a different disk drive if the mirroring is enabled. The disk enclosures are connected to the S-Blades via high-speed interconnects that allow all the disks simultaneously stream data to the S-Blades at the maximum rate possible. The data distribution and the storage is based on the distribution key which we use while creating table.