New Research - IDUG Study Shows Growing Business Influence for Data Professionals
The closer link between corporate performance and database performance is increasing pressure on DBAs and other data professionals to provide higher-level services to enterprise business customers, according to a new report based on a survey of International DB2 Users Group (IDUG) members, “Data Professionals Broaden Their Skills."
However, at the same time, the increasing size and complexity of data infrastructures is also making it more challenging than ever to optimize performance and service levels and, exacerbating the situation, data professionals often aren't getting the training and support needed to fulfill the evolving demands of their jobs, according to the CA-sponsored study, which was conducted by Unisphere Research.
The survey results underline how much of a driving factor data growth is for enterprise accounts, Adam Frary, director of product marketing, CA, told 5 Minute Briefing. Data growth is one of the critical issues that is spawning some of the other challenges that were surfaced in the survey, including backup and recovery, security, and working more closely with other IT groups such as application development, and data modelers and data architects, and business unit contacts, as well, he said.
Another finding that stood out was the fact that data professionals recognize the strong positive impact that database management has on the business - “whether it is in terms of containing costs or driving revenue or supporting new initiatives in services,” Frary said.
Nearly 40 percent of respondents consider the explosion of data across their organizations to be a top priority. Fifty-six percent of survey respondents rate database performance as their top operational data management challenge, followed closely by data recovery and availability (55%).
Of the 853 respondents, 83 percent spend at least some time each week directly consulting to the business - interacting with business unit executives and managers (29%), business unit IT teams (47%), and C-level/senior executives (10%). In addition, 44 percent of respondents are spending more time than ever on business consulting activities, especially in regard to data design/modeling and data storage/archiving issues. Nine of 10 respondents said that database operations have a direct impact on corporate performance, either in terms of cost savings or revenue increases, with 52 percent saying that it has a "high impact."
“Everybody is certainly feeling the pressure to do more with less. We hear that phrase again and again,” said Frary. In response to that pressure, there was an awareness among respondents of the importance of smart technologies with good integration to automate the right types of tasks so that expert DBAs or application developers can focus on other tasks, he observed. “While database management is a mature discipline, there is certainly a long way to go from a technology point of view to deliver additional technologies with better integration to help them work more efficiently."
Survey respondents to the IDUG survey were also asked about best sources of information and many cited industry conferences and local user groups “where people have a chance to network with their peers across other companies, share best practices, and hear speakers,” said Frary. “That face time - if they can afford to get out of the office - was valued very highly.” Also top of the list for respondents in terms of what would help them be more successful was “more training and more access to interesting technology to help them do their work,” he said.
“Without question, the responsibilities of today’s database management professionals are evolving and expanding, as are the skills and training necessary to meet those responsibilities,” observed Julian Stuhler, president of IDUG. “The results of the survey highlight the fact that by helping its members develop and hone these skills, IDUG is also having a significant positive impact on the business performance of their employers.”
Survey results are available from CA here. For survey results from IDUG, go here.
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Oracle Updates Oracle Berkeley DB Embeddable Databases
Oracle has announced new releases of Oracle Berkeley DB, Oracle Berkeley DB XML and Oracle Berkeley DB Java Edition, open source, embeddable databases which developers at ISVs, OEMs and enterprises can integrate directly into their software applications, devices, and equipment.
“Oracle is continuing to innovate the Berkeley DB family. There is a roadmap for each product and we continue to improve upon the products. We continue to support developers, both open source developers as well as commercial developers who work for other companies – and our support continues to be high quality, world-class, giving you very direct access to some of our deep product experts,” Rex Wang, vice president, Embedded Systems Marketing, Oracle, told 5 Minute Briefing. The products also continue be under an open source dual license model, which is unchanged, added Wang. “All these things indicate Oracle's continued commitment to these products.” Oracle acquired the Berkeley DB products in 2006.
The three products have been updated with features aimed at improving performance, said Wang. “The primary reason people choose Berkeley DB is that they need a very high performance embeddable database so the more we can do to improve efficiency, improve throughput, reduce latency, the better. That has always been a design goal for the entire family of products.” The other key focus for the new releases was ease of use for developers, Wang added. “We build functionality that allows them to create their products faster, more simply and with fewer mistakes.”
The Oracle Berkeley DB Release 4.7 features improved caching efficiency, faster database recovery, a cycling master feature for replicated environments, support for the Java Direct Persistence Layer (DPL) API, and QNX RTOS support. Oracle Berkeley DB XML Release 2.4 includes support for XQuery update, cost-based query optimization for improved performance, and XQilla for XQuery processing. Oracle Berkeley DB Java Edition Release 3.3 offers improved scalability, caching improvements, more efficient in-memory and on disk storage, and support for Google Android and Apache Maven.
Oracle has certified all three members of the Berkeley DB family with Oracle VM. Additionally, JasperSoft Business Intelligence Suite has been integrated with all three Oracle Berkeley DB products. The Oracle Berkeley DB products are generally available under a dual license. A no-cost open source license permits redistribution if the application using Oracle Berkeley DB is open source. A commercial license is available for redistribution of proprietary applications. Berkeley DB is available for download here.
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HiT Software DBMoto Gains IBM Informix Dynamic Server Validation
HiT Software, a vendor in the data integration and access (DIA) market, has announced that its real-time data replication product, DBMoto v6.2, has gained validation for IBM Informix Dynamic Server (IDS). As a result, according to the vendor, for the first time, using DBMoto, IT teams can replicate IDS database transactions to all other major databases.
DBMoto’s support for transactional replication ensures that remote databases use the latest data for accurate application processing or decision support in business intelligence and reporting. DBMoto also supports third-party database replication to IDS as a target. DBMoto architecture allows for customizable data transformations via scripting support, offering intelligent, business logic-based replication.
"DBMoto support for the Informix platform is meeting a significant need for businesses which rely on IDS high-performance, OLTP-based applications," said Giacomo Lorenzin, CEO at HiT Software, in making the announcement. "Our development teams have worked with IBM to ensure that DBMoto offers excellent performance and manageability."
DBMoto v6.2 can be downloaded immediately for a no-cost 30-day evaluation. Current DBMoto customers with active annual maintenance and support coverage may upgrade at no additional cost. For more information about HiT Software, go here.
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Aternity Introduces First Set of Packaged “Frontline Performance Intelligence” Solutions
Aternity, a supplier of end-user experience management solutions, has introduced what it calls the first set of packaged “frontline performance intelligence” (FPI) solutions tailored for specific enterprise applications. “By arming IT, business, help desk technicians,and software engineers with the empirical evidence on how frontline users' experience impacts business results, we are dramatically reducing business disruptions and increasing user productivity,” Donna Parent, senior director of marketing, Aternity, told 5 Minute Briefing.
Aternity FPI Solutions for SAP, Oracle, Siebel, Halliburton’s Landmark, Amdocs CRM, Microsoft Office/Exchange, Lotus Notes, Remedy, ARGO Data Systems, and Documentum are built on Aternity’s Frontline Performance Intelligence Platform. “We have out of the box support for those applications and can track how users are experiencing the performance and how long it is taking them to complete particular activities in those applications,” said Marcus Brown director of business development, Aternity.
Aternity’s FPI Platform monitors and analyzes in real-time the three core components that dynamically impact end-user IT experience in both real and virtual desktop environments: end-to-end application performance, desktop performance, and user performance and productivity. “When we talk about 'real end-user experience,' we are talking about the combination of these three components that really define how end-users consume the IT services,” said Parent. Combined with advanced analytics capabilities, the Aternity FPI Platform offers customers and partners the ability to generate comprehensive FPI from enterprise applications within days, according to the vendor.
In related news, Aternity announced the launch of its worldwide partner program for ISVs, SIs, OEMs, and technology partners. The Aternity Frontline Performance Intelligence (FPI) Partner Program is designed for vendors delivering products and services in the financial services, healthcare, energy, manufacturing, and retail industries, who are interested in enhancing their offerings with end-user experience management capabilities based on Aternity’s FPI Platform. Aternity has already established technology partnerships with Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, Dell, and RedHat. To learn more, prospective partners can email partners@aternity.com.
Organizations that would like to instrument an enterprise application that is not already part of the current tailored FPI Solutions list, can contact Aternity to qualify for a free POC. To see the complete list of pre-built Aternity FPI Solutions, go here.
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HP Unveils HP BladeSystem for Oracle Optimized Warehouse
HP has introduced a new blade offering for the one-to-four-terabyte market segment within the Oracle Optimized Warehouse initiative. The HP BladeSystem for Oracle Optimized Warehouse builds on current reference configuration solutions available from HP and Oracle for data warehousing. Composed of HP BladeSystem and Oracle Database, the pre-configured, the appliance-like offering is intended to offer customers faster implementation times and better performance, as well as improved energy efficiencies.
“This product is really tailored to a segment of the marketplace that Oracle and HP have collaboratively focused on for a long time – data warehousing and data marts,” Rich Ghiossi, director of business intelligence at HP, told 5 Minute Briefing. “There has been a need in the marketplace to accelerate the installation and bring-up time of a data warehouses so that users could actually start using the technology faster. That is the focus of the appliance-like technology that we brought to market.”
With the new offering targeted at medium- to large-size businesses, Ghiossi said, users could be able to take advantage of a data warehouse in 60 to 90 days rather than having to wait three to six months.
HP worked closely with Oracle to create the joint offering. According to tests, for products in this category of one-to-four terabytes, the offering provides customers with up to 2.5 times higher performance, “which gives us, we believe, a significant advantage in terms of getting information to users,” Ghiossi said. “And then second, because we have implemented this with blades technology, it provides us some capabilities to package it small, capitalize on the performance of blades technologies and at the same time also leverage the power efficiency built into typical blades implementations.”
HP BladeSystem, the foundation for this offering, brings the essential elements of a data warehouse infrastructure - compute, storage, interconnect and management - together into a modular, self-optimizing unit. The Oracle Optimized Warehouse initiative is designed to deliver data warehousing solutions based on Oracle Database pre-installed on hardware that is configured and optimized for high-performance data warehousing.
HP BladeSystem for Oracle Optimized Warehouse is available through global technology distributor Avnet Technology Solutions and its select network of value-added resellers and system integrators. It is expected to begin shipping in July. More information about the HP BladeSystem for Oracle Optimized Warehouse is available here. More information about HP Business Intelligence solutions for Oracle is available here.
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