Gartner names Microsoft a leader in the Magic Quadrant for Data Management Solutions for Analytics (DMSA)

This post was authored by Rohan Kumar, General Manager, DS SQL Engineering.

We’re excited that Gartner has recognized Microsoft as a leader in the Magic Quadrant for Data Management Solutions for Analytics (DMSA). Gartner defines the DMSA as a system for storing, accessing, processing, and delivering data intended for one of the primary use cases that support analytics.[1] These use cases include supporting ongoing traditional, operational, logical, and context-independent data warehousing.[2] The DMSA thus represents an evolution from the traditional data warehousing approach. Although data warehousing continues to be a major use case, the DMSA encompasses new trends such as data lakes and context-independent data warehouses that enable data science uses cases.[3]

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At Microsoft we have been championing a similar evolution to make big data processing and analytics simpler and more accessible to transform data into intelligent action. We do this through SQL Server 2016 and the Cortana Intelligence Suite to offer a comprehensive portfolio of solutions to do data warehousing, big data, and advanced analytics solutions. SQL Server as an example gives organizations a breadth of capabilities to do analytics on-premises, including features like real-time operational analytics, in-memory columnstore, integration with Hadoop via PolyBase, in-database analytics with R Services built in, and fast time to market with reference architectures. In the cloud, we offer Cortana Intelligence Suite, which has SQL Data Warehouse, a truly elastic, scale-out data warehouse; HDInsight, a managed Hadoop service that runs Hortonworks Data Platform; Data Lake Analytics, an on-demand analytics job service to power intelligent action; Data Lake Store, a no-limits data lake to power intelligent action; and DocumentDB, a global scale-out NoSQL service with <10ms guarantees.

In providing customers with these solutions, our goal is to help them realize the full potential of their data and give them the ability to transform their business. As an example, Tangerine uses a data warehouse on-premises with Hadoop in the cloud so that it can query relational and nonrelational data to accelerate its time to insights. With such a solution, Tangerine is looking to transform the financial services industry by building a predictive, context-aware application that gives it information based on the time and where the customer is.

We’re excited that Gartner recognized both our ability to execute and the completeness of vision by placing Microsoft in the leader’s quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for Data Management Solutions for Analytics. Gartner notes that leaders have been able to adapt rapidly to this changing market and have pursued all the primary use cases Gartner identified to support analytics.[4] The push for cloud has also affected the relative ratings among the leaders.[5] In the coming year, we will continue to focus on delivering the highest value to our customers and partners through innovations that make data warehousing, big data, and analytics even more accessible to transform data into intelligent action. You can read the full report, “Magic Quadrant for Data Management Solutions for Analytics,” here.

To learn more:


[1] Source: Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Data Management Solutions for Analytics, 2017.
[2] Source: Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Data Management Solutions for Analytics, 2017.
[3] Source: Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Data Management Solutions for Analytics, 2017.
[4] Source: Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Data Management Solutions for Analytics, 2017.
[5] Source: Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Data Management Solutions for Analytics, 2017.