Vertica Blog
Soniya Shah smiling

Soniya Shah

Information Developer

Currently, a first year law student with a background in science and technology. Experienced technical writer, with specializations in software documentation, big data, blog development, and website development. I build user-centered content to communicate complex and technical information more easily.

I used to work for Vertica full time for about 3 years. I still work at Vertica part time while going to law school.

Update: Soniya is now doing her law internship, and no longer working at Vertica. Good luck, Soniya!

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Vertica Quick Tip: Which Rows Will Commit?

Soniya Shah, Information Developer
January 23, 2018

This blog post was authored by Jim Knicely. Did you ever update a bunch of rows in a table, then forget which ones you changed? Fearing you might have updated an incorrect record, you might have to roll back and start again. Or, in Vertica you can first check which records have been modified prior...

Vertica Quick Tip: Date Arithmetic with Intervals

Soniya Shah, Information Developer
January 22, 2018

This blog post was authored by Jim Knicely. In the last Vertica Quick Tip we saw how easy date arithmetic can be. Well, it can be even easier with Intervals! What is today’s, yesterday’s and tomorrow’s date? Again, you’re not limited to whole days! You can also easily add and subtract partial days (i.e. hours,...

Virtual DataGals Kick Off

Soniya Shah, Information Developer
January 22, 2018

This blog post was authored by Crystal Farley (North). Last week, the virtual chapter of DataGals started with their kick off event: Come here, go anywhere! Joy King, VP of Product Management, Product Marketing, and Field Engagement for Vertica talked about her experience and journey in her career. Joy has been with the company for...

Vertica AWS Eon Mode Beta Provisioning with Management Console

Soniya Shah, Information Developer
January 18, 2018

This blog post was co-authored by Michael Hua and Soniya Shah. As of Vertica 9.0.x, you can operate your database in Eon Mode Beta. Doing this separates the computational processes from the storage layer of your database, enabling rapid scaling of resources to accommodate variable workloads. This post describes how you can provision a Vertica...

Vertica Quick Tip: Date Arithmetic

Soniya Shah, Information Developer
January 18, 2018

This blog post was authored by Jim Knicely. Date arithmetic in Vertica is extremely easy! What is today’s, yesterday’s and tomorrow’s date? But you’re not limited to whole days! You can also easily add and subtract partial days (i.e. hours, minutes and seconds)! Have Fun!

Vertica Quick Tip: Avoid Using Functions on Very Large Data Sets

Soniya Shah, Information Developer
January 17, 2018

This blog post was authored by Jim Knicely. You can store billions and billions and billions (i.e. a lot) of records in your Vertica tables. When querying these large data sets, try to avoid using database functions like TO_DATE, TO_CHAR, NVL, etc. when unnecessary. A table named BIG_DATE_TABLE has 1 billion rows and a column...
Database Server Room

Eon Mode Beta Overview in 9.0.1

Soniya Shah, Information Developer
January 16, 2018

This blog post was authored by Soniya Shah. What is Eon Mode Beta? In Vertica 9.0.1, Eon Mode Beta, the separation of compute and storage, continues on Amazon Web Services S3. Eon Mode Beta was introduced in Vertica 9.0 to capitalize on cloud economics, while still enjoying the fast query processing for which Vertica is...

Vertica Quick Tip: Generating a Random Date

Soniya Shah, Information Developer
January 16, 2018

This blog post was authored by Jim Knicely. I can easily generate a random integer value using the Vertica built-in RANDOMINT function. For example: But what if I need a random date? Luckily in Vertica I can create my own SQL function for that! Example

Vertica Quick Tip: The LIMIT Analytic Function

Soniya Shah, Information Developer
January 11, 2018

This blog post was authored by Jim Knicely. Vertica contains an abundance of built-in SQL analytic functions. One of the lesser known but also one of the coolest is the LIMIT analytic function. Example Say I have the following table data: But I only want to see the latest test number for each date. For...

Vertica Quick Tip: How to Query for NaN Values

Soniya Shah, Information Developer
January 10, 2018

This blog post was authored by Jim Knicely. We're introducing a new series: Vertica Quick Tips! These tips are intended to give you concise information to help you get the most out of using Vertica. NaN (Not a Number) does not equal anything, not even another NaN. You can query for them using the predicate...

What’s New in Vertica 9.0.1: Machine Learning

Soniya Shah, Information Developer
January 9, 2018

This blog post was authored by Soniya Shah. Vertica 9.0.1 introduces new functionality that continues to match our goals for fast-paced development and enhancement of machine learning in Vertica. In this release, we introduce support for random forest for regression, a new statistical summary function, increased support for cross validation, and enhancements for data evaluation....

IMPORTANT: What you need to know about hardware security flaws

Soniya Shah, Information Developer
January 4, 2018

Vertica is aware of potential chip-level security flaws in recently discovered hardware bugs. Operating system vendors have developed patches to address these problems. Installing the patches could impact application performance. Vertica engineers are actively investigating how these patches might affect Vertica performance and will keep our customers informed. There is much speculation about the impact...