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DATAllegro

discontinued

by DATAllegro Inc. (acquired by Microsoft) · since 2003 · also known as DATAllegro v3

MPP data warehouse appliance on commodity hardware; bought by Microsoft in 2008 to become SQL Server PDW.

relationaldatabase engineproprietarylegacy
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discontinued. Acquired by Microsoft in 2008; the technology became SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse (later APS, then Azure Synapse dedicated SQL pools).

Overview

DATAllegro was a data warehouse appliance vendor founded in 2003 by Stuart Frost that competed with Teradata and Netezza on price and performance. Its DATAllegro v3 appliances combined patent-pending MPP software with off-the-shelf hardware, Dell and Bull servers with EMC storage, and an open-source database engine (Ingres) on each node, targeting warehouses of tens to hundreds of terabytes; product lines included single- and multi-rack appliances, an archive tier and grid options. Microsoft announced the acquisition on July 24, 2008 and folded the technology and team into SQL Server, where it surfaced as SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse, later the Analytics Platform System, whose MPP lineage continues in Azure Synapse dedicated SQL pools. DATAllegro appliances themselves are long out of support.

Data warehouseAnalytics (OLAP)

Strengths & trade-offs

Strengths

  • +MPP warehouse on non-proprietary servers and storage rather than custom hardware
  • +Scaled to hundreds of terabytes at lower cost than incumbent appliances
  • +Its architecture lives on in Microsoft's MPP warehouse products

Trade-offs

  • −Discontinued after the 2008 acquisition; appliances are long out of support
  • −Appliance model meant fixed hardware configurations and big upfront purchases

Great for

  • +Historical reference for the 2000s data warehouse appliance wave
  • +Understanding the origins of SQL Server PDW and Azure Synapse

Think twice for

  • −Any new deployment

Capabilities

Native or official first-party support · 4 of 25 tracked

✓Transactions
✓Joins
✓Secondary indexes
✓Durable persistence
–Full-text search
–Vector search
–Geospatial
–JSON
–Change data capture
–Triggers
–Stored procedures
–Materialized views
–TTL / expiry
–Pub/Sub
–Columnar storage
–In-memory
–Compression
–Encryption at rest
–Role-based access
–Time travel
–Branching
–Online schema changes
–Streaming ingest
–Offline sync
–Runs in WebAssembly

Scale & consistency

Comfortable data size
Large · ≤ 1 PB
Horizontal scaling
Native
Multi-region
No
Transactions
Full ACID
Consistency
Strong
Schema
Strict
Architecture
Distributed
Query languages
SQL

Microsoft cited installations of hundreds of terabytes on a single system.

Deployment

Self-hosted Vendor-managed cloud Serverless Embedded Edge Kubernetes operator

Ecosystem

apis & protocolsODBC, JDBC

Alternatives to DATAllegro

Compare all→
Azure Synapse AnalyticsColumnar / OLAP7.4

Azure analytics service combining MPP dedicated SQL pools, serverless SQL and Spark.

datallegro vs azure-synapse-analytics →
Teradata VantageRelational38.5

The original MPP data warehouse, now VantageCloud with open table formats and in-database analytics.

datallegro vs teradata-vantage →
IBM NetezzaRelational15.1

IBM's FPGA-accelerated MPP warehouse, now offered as NPS on-prem, in Cloud Pak and as a service.

datallegro vs ibm-netezza →
GreenplumRelational20.7

PostgreSQL-based MPP data warehouse, closed-sourced by Broadcom in 2024 and sold in Tanzu Data.

datallegro vs greenplum →
SnowflakeColumnar / OLAP74.4

Fully managed cloud data warehouse with separate storage and compute, now spanning AI and apps.

datallegro vs snowflake →
Amazon RedshiftColumnar / OLAP55.8

AWS's MPP columnar data warehouse, available as provisioned RA3 clusters or Serverless.

datallegro vs amazon-redshift →

DATAllegro FAQ

What is DATAllegro?

DATAllegro is a relational database by DATAllegro Inc. (acquired by Microsoft), first released in 2003. DATAllegro was a data warehouse appliance vendor founded in 2003 by Stuart Frost that competed with Teradata and Netezza on price and performance. Its DATAllegro v3 appliances combined patent-pending MPP software with off-the-shelf hardware, Dell and Bull servers with EMC storage, and an open-source database engine (Ingres) on each node, targeting warehouses of tens to hundreds of terabytes; product lines included single- and multi-rack appliances, an archive tier and grid options. Microsoft announced the acquisition on July 24, 2008 and folded the technology and team into SQL Server, where it surfaced as SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse, later the Analytics Platform System, whose MPP lineage continues in Azure Synapse dedicated SQL pools. DATAllegro appliances themselves are long out of support.

Is DATAllegro open source?

No. DATAllegro is proprietary, closed-source software.

Does DATAllegro support ACID transactions?

Yes. DATAllegro supports full ACID transactions, with strong consistency.

Does DATAllegro scale horizontally?

DATAllegro scales horizontally out of the box, with built-in sharding or partitioning. It is comfortable at large scale (≤ 1 PB).

How can I run DATAllegro?

You can self-host it.

What is DATAllegro best for?

DATAllegro is a strong fit for historical reference for the 2000s data warehouse appliance wave; and understanding the origins of SQL Server PDW and Azure Synapse. Think twice for any new deployment.

What are the best alternatives to DATAllegro?

Common alternatives to DATAllegro include Azure Synapse Analytics, Teradata Vantage, IBM Netezza, Greenplum and Snowflake. The right choice depends on your workload, scale and hosting; WhichDB's smart match ranks them against your requirements.

Is DATAllegro still maintained?

DATAllegro is discontinued. Acquired by Microsoft in 2008; the technology became SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse (later APS, then Azure Synapse dedicated SQL pools).

How popular is DATAllegro?

DATAllegro has little measurable public adoption today, so it ranks near the bottom of the WhichDB Score.