Features of sybase IQ server : taken from sybasewiki

As a column-oriented DBMS, Sybase IQ stores data tables as sections of columns of data rather than as rows of data. This has a number of advantages; if a search is being done for items matching a particular value in a column of data, only the storage objects corresponding to that data column within the table need to be accessed. A traditional row-based database would have to read the whole table top to bottom.

Additionally, the column-based storage enables IQ to compress data efficiently on the fly; as each column is made up of a number of records of the same data type and size, compression can be very efficient and rapid.

Sybase claims[2] that Sybase IQ now powers the world's largest data warehouse implemented in history, consisting of over one petabyte (1,000 terabytes) of structured and unstructured data, designed and implemented by BMMSoft. Further, citing this example, Sybase claims that Sybase IQ is a more efficient database for certain customers, reducing equipment and processing needed, and thus reduced energy consumption compared to more traditional row-based databases.

Since databases with limited domains (e.g., one that contains state names like VA, MD, WV, NJ, etc.) and high row counts are incidentally compressed by storage in column form (as only one example of each value in the domain is stored), those types of databases can be stored using less space than those employing more traditional row storage. Sybase claimed that in the case of the BMMSoft data warehouse, their one petabyte of raw transactional data (or 500 terabytes of transactional and 72 terabytes of multimedia) was represented using only 260 terabytes of storage.

Customers

Sybase IQ currently, have more than 1500 customers world wide and 3000+ installations. Sybase IQ is supportting 100 to 1000's of users concurrently in analytics and data warehousing environment.