computer science

Teradata

Teradata is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Teradata rather than just read about it. In short: Teradata Corporation is an American software company that provides cloud database and analytics-related software, products, and services. The company was formed in 1979 in Brentwood, California, as a collaboration between researchers at Caltech and Citibank's advanced technology group.

Key takeaways

Teradata belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Teradata to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Teradata from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Teradata Corporation is an American software company that provides cloud database and analytics-related software, products, and services. The company was formed in 1979 in Brentwood, California, as a collaboration between researchers at Caltech and Citibank's advanced technology group.

Overview Teradata is an enterprise software company that develops and sells database analytics software. The company provides three main services: business analytics, cloud products, and consulting. It operates in North and Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Teradata is headquartered in San Diego, California, and has additional major U.S. locations in Atlanta and San Francisco, where its data center research and development is housed. It is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the stock symbol TDC. Steve McMillan has served as the company's president and chief executive officer since 2020. The company reported $1.836 billion in revenue, a net income of $129 million, and 8,535 employees globally, as of February 9, 2020.

History The concept of Teradata grew from research at the California Institute of Technology and from the discussions of Citibank's advanced technology group in the 1970s. In 1979, the company was incorporated in Brentwood, California, by Jack E. Shemer, Philip M. Neches, Walter E. Muir, Jerold R. Modes, William P. Worth, Carroll Reed and David Hartke. Teradata released its DBC/1012 database machine in 1984, with Citibank as an early customer. In 1990, the company acquired Sharebase, originally named Britton Lee, another early database machine vendor that, unlike Teradata's IBM mainframe focus, primarily served midrange systems. In September 1991, AT&T Corporation acquired NCR Corporation, which announced the acquisition of Teradata for about $250 million in December. Teradata built the first system over 1 terabyte for Wal-Mart in 1992. NCR acquired Strategic Technologies & Systems in 1999 and appointed Stephen Brobst as chief technology officer of Teradata Solutions Group. In 2000, NCR acquired Ceres Integrated Solutions and its customer relationship management software for $90 million, as well as Stirling Douglas Group and its demand chain management software. Teradata acquired financial management software from DecisionPoint in 2005. In January 2007, NCR announced Teradata would become an independent public company, led by Michael F. Koehler. The new company's shares started trading in October. In April 2016, a hardware product line called IntelliFlex was announced. Victor L. Lund became the chief executive on May 5, 2016. In October 2018, Teradata started promoting its cloud analytics software called Vantage (which evolved from the Teradata Database). On May 7, 2020, Teradata announced the appointment of Steve McMillan as president and chief executive officer, effective June 8, 2020. In December 2024, Teradata successfully appealed a California federal judge's decision in favor of SAP SE in a case involving allegations of trade secret misappropriation and antitrust violations. The lawsuit accused SAP of using Teradata's trade secrets to address technical issues in its software and of violating antitrust laws by bundling products and requiring customers to purchase them together. A federal appeals court reversed the earlier ruling, reviving Teradata's claims.

Acquisitions and divestitures Teradata has acquired several companies since becoming an independent public company in 2008. In March 2008, Teradata acquired professional services company Claraview, which previously had spun out software provider Clarabridge. Teradata acquired column-oriented DBMS vendor Kickfire in August 2010, followed by the marketing software company Aprimo for about $550 million in December. In March 2011, the company acquired Aster Data Systems for about $263 million. Teradata acquired Software-as-a-service digital marketing company eCircle in May 2012, which was merged into the Aprimo business. In 2014, Teradata acquired the assets of Revelytix, a provider of information management products and for a reported $50 million. In September, Teradata acquired Hadoop service firm Think Big Analytics. In December, Teradata acquired RainStor, a company specializing in online data archiving on Hadoop. Teradata acquired Appoxxee, a mobile marketing software as a service provider, for about $20 million in January 2015, followed by the Netherlands-based digital marketing company FLXone in September. That same year Teradata acquired a small Business Intelligence firm, MiaPearl. In July 2016, the marketing applications division, using the Aprimo brand, was sold to private equity firm Marlin Equity Partners for about $90 million with Aprimo under CEO John Stammen moving its headquarters to Chicago. while absorbing Revenew Inc. that Marlin had also bought. Teradata acquired Big Data Partnership, a service company based in the UK, on July 21, 2016. In July 2017, Teradata acquired StackIQ, maker of the Stacki cluster manager software. In 2023, Teradata acquired Stemma, a data catalog software provider.

Technology and products Teradata offers three primary services to its customers: cloud and hardware-based data warehousing, business analytics, and consulting services. In September 2016, the company launched Teradata Everywhere, which allows users to submit queries against public and private databases. The service uses massively parallel processing across both its physical data warehouse and cloud storage, including managed environments such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, VMware, and Teradata's Managed Cloud and IntelliFlex. Teradata offers customers both hybrid cloud and multi-cloud storage. In March 2017, Teradata introduced Teradata IntelliCloud, a secure managed cloud for data and analytic software as a service. IntelliCloud is compatible with Teradata's data warehouse platform, IntelliFlex. The Teradata Analytics Platform was unveiled in 2017. In July 2025, Teradata introduced ModelOps, updating its ClearScape Analytics to streamline agentic AI and generative AI applications.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Teradata

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Teradata claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Teradata before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Teradata ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Teradata

In research: Teradata appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Teradata in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Teradata is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1979 establishments in California, 2007 initial public offerings, American companies established in 1979, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Teradata outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Teradata in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Teradata means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Teradata out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Teradata in simple terms?

Why does Teradata matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Teradata?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Teradata.