Microsoft just released the press release detailing their first push into the high end, appliance DWH market. The reference architecture is preconfigured hardware running SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition with the following benefits to customers:
- Per terabyte pricing
- Linear and predictable performance
- 1.6-32 terabytes capacity
- A very competitive $/terabyte offering starting at around $13K (32 TB capacity) and ending at $25K (4 TB capacity)
Read more at Peter Koller:
http://peterkol.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!68755AEAC31F9A6C!1022.entry
More about Microsoft Fast track Datawarehouse on the 9th of March 2010 at HP, Amstelveen, The Netherlands.