Audience
All types of businesses and organizations requiring a solution to query their data directly where it is stored
About IBM Cloud SQL Query
Serverless, interactive querying for analyzing data in IBM Cloud Object Storage. Query your data directly where it is stored, there's no ETL, no databases, and no infrastructure to manage. IBM Cloud SQL Query uses Apache Spark, an open-source, fast, extensible, in-memory data processing engine optimized for low latency and ad hoc analysis of data. No ETL or schema definition needed to enable SQL queries. Analyze data where it sits in IBM Cloud Object Storage using our query editor and REST API. Run as many queries as you need; with pay-per-query pricing, you pay only for the data scan. Compress or partition data to drive savings and performance. IBM Cloud SQL Query is highly available and executes queries using compute resources across multiple facilities. IBM Cloud SQL Query supports a variety of data formats such as CSV, JSON and Parquet, and allows for standard ANSI SQL.
Other Popular Alternatives & Related Software
Apache Druid
Apache Druid is an open source distributed data store. Druid’s core design combines ideas from data warehouses, timeseries databases, and search systems to create a high performance real-time analytics database for a broad range of use cases. Druid merges key characteristics of each of the 3 systems into its ingestion layer, storage format, querying layer, and core architecture. Druid stores and compresses each column individually, and only needs to read the ones needed for a particular query, which supports fast scans, rankings, and groupBys. Druid creates inverted indexes for string values for fast search and filter. Out-of-the-box connectors for Apache Kafka, HDFS, AWS S3, stream processors, and more. Druid intelligently partitions data based on time and time-based queries are significantly faster than traditional databases. Scale up or down by just adding or removing servers, and Druid automatically rebalances. Fault-tolerant architecture routes around server failures.
Learn more
TimescaleDB
TimescaleDB is the leading time-series database built on PostgreSQL, designed to handle massive volumes of real-time data efficiently. It enables organizations to store, analyze, and query time-series data — such as IoT sensor data, financial transactions, or event logs — using standard SQL. With hypertables, TimescaleDB automatically partitions data by time and ID for fast ingestion and predictable query performance. Its compression engine reduces storage costs by up to 95%, while continuous aggregates make real-time dashboards instantly responsive. Fully compatible with PostgreSQL, it integrates seamlessly with existing tools and applications. TimescaleDB combines the simplicity of Postgres with the scalability and speed of a specialized analytical system.
Learn more
Teradata VantageCloud
Teradata VantageCloud: The complete cloud analytics and data platform for AI.
Teradata VantageCloud is an enterprise-grade, cloud-native data and analytics platform that unifies data management, advanced analytics, and AI/ML capabilities in a single environment. Designed for scalability and flexibility, VantageCloud supports multi-cloud and hybrid deployments, enabling organizations to manage structured and semi-structured data across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and on-premises systems. It offers full ANSI SQL support, integrates with open-source tools like Python and R, and provides built-in governance for secure, trusted AI. VantageCloud empowers users to run complex queries, build data pipelines, and operationalize machine learning models—all while maintaining interoperability with modern data ecosystems.
Learn more
Apache DataFusion
Apache DataFusion is an extensible, high-performance query engine written in Rust that utilizes Apache Arrow as its in-memory format. Designed for developers building data-centric systems such as databases, data frames, machine learning, and streaming applications, DataFusion offers SQL and DataFrame APIs, a vectorized, multi-threaded, streaming execution engine, and support for partitioned data sources. It natively supports formats like CSV, Parquet, JSON, and Avro, and allows for seamless integration with object stores including AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage, and Google Cloud Storage. The engine features a comprehensive query planner, a state-of-the-art optimizer with capabilities like expression coercion and simplification, projection and filter pushdown, sort and distribution-aware optimizations, and automatic join reordering. DataFusion is highly customizable, enabling the addition of user-defined scalar, aggregate, and window functions, custom data sources, query languages, etc.
Learn more
Pricing
Starting Price:
$5.00/Terabyte-Month
Free Version:
Free Version available.
Free Trial:
Free Trial available.
Company Information
IBM
Founded: 1911
United States
www.ibm.com/cloud/sql-query
Videos and Screen Captures
Other Useful Business Software
Build Agents and Models on One Platform
Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform is Google Cloud's comprehensive platform for developers to build, scale, govern, and optimize agents and models. Choose from Google's most advanced models and third-party models like Anthropic's Claude Model Family.
Product Details
Platforms Supported
Cloud
Windows
Mac
Linux
Training
Documentation
Live Online
Webinars
In Person
Videos
Support
Phone Support
24/7 Live Support
Online
IBM Cloud SQL Query Frequently Asked Questions
IBM Cloud SQL Query Product Features
Relational Database
ACID Compliance
Supported
Data Failure Recovery
Supported
Multi-Platform
Supported
Referential Integrity
Supported
SQL DDL Support
Supported
SQL DML Support
Supported
System Catalog
Supported
Unicode Support
Supported
