You really need to join the Netezza developer network (to get access to documentation etc) and/or talk to your Netezza Account manager to get docs and/or training.. See http://www.netezza.com/ndn/about.html for the NDN website. ALSO - have a look around this forum - some good info on here. Final recommendation - buy a copy of David Birmingham's Netezza Underground book - well worth it if you're serious about getting to know Netezza well.

A brief answer to your questions below :

Yes there are utilities (nzsql, nzload etc) which correspond to teradata stuff like BTEQ and FASTLOAD

Netezza does (now) have stored procedure and UDF capabilities - but doesn'tuse traditional indexes or partitioning

See above re documentation

External tables are a way of defining flat files outside the Netezza DBMS for importing and/or exporting data via INSERT/SELECT commands.

D.