eBay Pioneers Analytics as a Service on Teradata Foundation

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--eBay, the world's largest trading community, is pioneering enterprise analytics as a service, working with Teradata Corporation (NYSE:TDC), the world’s largest company solely focused on data warehousing and enterprise analytics.

“Analytics are in our DNA from the bottom-up and from the top down. The metrics you know are cheap while the metrics you don't know are expensive but also high in potential ROI.”

To support the effort, eBay has the distinction of running the world’s largest commercial enterprise data warehouse (EDW) environment at five petabytes, powered by Teradata.

Oliver Ratzesberger, senior director, architecture and operations for eBay Inc. will detail how eBay conceived, designed and implemented the new capability on Tuesday, October 14 beginning at 11 AM PDT at the Teradata PARTNERS user group conference in Las Vegas.

eBay has combined the agility and ease of use of data marts with the advantages of a centralized data warehouse by selecting a platform with massively parallel processing capability. This approach has given eBay an advanced self-service model that allows groups to leverage virtual systems for their individual or department needs, at a cost that undercuts any data mart or cascaded systems implementation.

Over 50 business units at eBay run test environments on the EDW at any given time, with each test having a lifespan of 90 days. Using analytics as a service for rapid prototyping enables the eBay teams to quickly experiment with ideas and learn fast, thus improving time to market. “Because the main data is already in the enterprise data warehouse, we can offer prototyping environments at no cost to business units,” said Ratzesberger. “This helps eBay keep our competitive edge.”

News Facts

eBay began using Teradata solutions in 2002 with a single 14-terabyte system.
Today, eBay processes 50 petabytes of information each day while adding 40 terabytes of data each day as millions buy and sell items across 50,000 categories.
A petabyte holds 1,024 times as much data as a terabyte. If every PC had a 50-gigabyte hard drive, storing a petabyte would take 20,000 PCs.
Over 5,000 business users and analysts turn over a terabyte of data every eight seconds. Raising parallel efficiency, the effectiveness of distributing large amounts of workload over pools and grids of servers, equals millions in operating expense savings.

Quotes

Oliver Ratzesberger

Senior Director, Architecture and Operations

eBay Inc.

"Analytics are in our DNA from the bottom-up and from the top down. The metrics you know are cheap while the metrics you don't know are expensive but also high in potential ROI."

Darryl McDonald

Chief Marketing Officer

Teradata Corporation

"Teradata is very pleased to be partnering with eBay, one of the leading companies that are leveraging and innovating with our Active Enterprise Intelligence. Use of enterprise information for analytics, accessible and actionable in real time, is clearly recognized as one of the most critical competitive advantages for any business. As data volumes grow and business cycles shorten, especially in e-business, the demand increases for immediate access to information from across the enterprise, and with that, the demand for ever-larger systems. While other companies talk about petabyte-sized systems - or claim so-called records with test systems in a lab - Teradata is actually doing it in the real business world with companies like eBay and the others in Teradata's Petabyte Power Players Club."

Relevant Links

Read more about Analytics as a Service at XtremeLargeMPP blog http://www.xlmpp.com/ managed by Oliver Ratzesberger

“The Velocity of eBay”, DM Review http://www.dmreview.com/specialreports/2008_94/10001877-1.html

Definition of petabyte, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petabyte.

Company Background

About eBay Inc.

Founded in 1995, eBay Inc. connects hundreds of millions of people around the world every day, empowering them to explore new opportunities and innovate together. eBay Inc. does this by providing the Internet platforms of choice for global commerce, payments and communications. Since its inception, eBay Inc. has expanded to include some of the strongest brands in the world, including eBay, PayPal, Skype, Shopping.com and others. eBay Inc. is headquartered in San Jose, California.

About Teradata

Teradata Corporation (NYSE: TDC) is the world’s largest company solely focused on raising intelligence through data warehousing, consulting services and enterprise analytics. Teradata is in more than 60 countries and on the Web at www.teradata.com.

Teradata is a registered trademark of Teradata Corporation in the United States and other countries.