Breaking News - Kirix Unveils Web Browser for Data 2.0
Today, data analysis solutions company Kirix announced the general release of Kirix Strata, which the company calls the world’s first and only Web browser developed specifically to enable ad hoc analysis of data, irrespective of source or complexity. “The data browser is the fusion of a Web browser and a relational database,” Nate Williams, president of Kirix, told 5 Minute Briefing. “We have put database functionality into a browser.”
Incorporating a robust relational database and a rich browser environment for working with data, Kirix Strata users can join disparate data from multiple locations - Web, remote servers and/or the user’s own PC - into a single data set; sort, filter, and query data; quickly create detailed reports; and much more. “When you have to import and export data into a tool, you lose a lot of productivity gains,” Williams said. “This lets you leave data where it is.” Kirix Strata supports direct connectivity with all the major database systems as well as via ODBC.
As a “data browser,” Strata provides an intuitive, graphical environment for interacting with data with the same simplicity as browsing the Web. Users can sort and filter data with a single click of the mouse, or add new, calculated fields instantly to perform ad hoc calculations. Users have the ability to open data files from their local drive or network, as well as to connect directly to database management systems such as MySQL or Oracle, and work with data from these systems. However, because of its Web connectivity, Strata also enables users to work with CSV files, HTML tables and RSS feeds directly from the Web. In addition, by applying Strata’s data-enabled version of JavaScript, users can develop new, rich Internet applications that mash up Web APIs together with local data files.
Strata also has built-in report writer that has the look and feel of a spreadsheet and works in familiar fashion. “You can have reporting out of the box,” Williams said, noting that there is no equivalent to Crystal Reports for MySQL. Strata is a standalone application that incorporates the Mozilla Foundation’s Gecko layout engine, so it allows users to surf the Web in similar fashion to other browsers.
With roots as a database consulting organization, Kirix has been providing specialized data management for the past several years. Strata is its first solution to address a broad market. The product roadmap calls for additional plug-ins to manage more data sources; addressing the issue of sharing data; and working with WSDL objects. Data usability on the Web is a long-term issue,” Williams said. To see a demo, visit here.
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Revelation Software Plans to Unveil OpenInsight 8.1 at Upcoming Users Conference
Revelation Software plans to introduce a new version of OpenInsight at its upcoming users conference, Vegas 2008, which will be held at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on May 13 through May 16. OpenInsight, Revelation's flagship product, is a repository-based applications development environment that enables development teams to work collaboratively to design, develop, deploy and scale high-performance business solutions.
“We will give attendees the first look at the next major release of OpenInsight, which is version 8.1, and within 8.1, we have a number of new tools for developers,” Mike Ruane, CEO and president, Revelation Software, told 5 Minute Briefing. “We have really been listening to what they want and have come up with a new editor, new form designer, a brand new interface to using the application - so our whole initial look and feel has been modernized.”
Revelation also plans to highlight products that have been released since the 2007 Revelation users conference, said Ruane. “We continue to go with the flow,” said Ruane. “As technology changes and emerges, we are just showing that Revelation software and our products continue to change and emerge as well.”
In addition, the conference will provide an opportunity for users to share problems, get technical tips and techniques and be trained by knowledgeable Revelation experts. The vendor fair and exhibition will spotlight some of the best products, tools and consultants in the Revelation world, according to the company.
The room block with special rates for attendees of the conference closes April 28. For more information about Revelation's Vegas 2008 conference, go here.
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Informatica to Acquire Identity Systems
Informatica, a leading independent provider of data integration software, has agreed to acquire Nokia subsidiary Identity Systems, a pioneer in identity resolution technology for approximately $85 million. Identity resolution enables precise identity search and matching to find required critical information for individuals or organizations. This strategic acquisition will extend Informatica products with innovative, differentiated technology to search, match and resolve identity data about a variety of objects including people, companies and products. “It is the category leader in identity resolution,” Ivan Chong, senior vice president at Informatica, told 5 Minute Briefing. “And it has an SDK and has been successful with application vendors embedding its technology.”
Companies are defined by their data, Chong said. Globalization and e-commerce are leading to greater diversity of identity information in IT systems that require cross-language capabilities. In addition, exploding data volumes dictate far greater scalability than the traditional matching technologies. Identity Systems delivers a comprehensive set of "fuzzy" algorithms, with built-in support for more than 60 languages, to enable precise identity search and matching, across immense volumes of data, in real time.
The acquisition of Identity Systems will allow Informatica innovative identity search and resolution technology. It will extend and differentiate its data integration solution by added cross-language identity matching capability. And, it provides near-universal access to the data integration platform and the ability to integrate identity data. “We look at this as a way to expand our addressable market. We are looking to grow aggressively,” Chong said. For more information, go here.
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Imperva ADC Discovers and Helps Oracle Address Critical Security Flaw
The Imperva Application Defense Center (ADC), the independent research organization of Imperva, a provider of activity monitoring, real-time protection and risk management solutions, has discovered and reported to Oracle an access control bypass vulnerability that affects all Oracle versions up to 10gR2. This vulnerability can be exploited to extract information from any table in a database server by unauthorized users. “The vulnerability is in the Direct Path Export functionality,” Amichai Shulman, head of Imperva's ADC research group and CTO of Imperva, told 5 Minute Briefing. “There is no access control and once users open connections, they can export any table.”
Oracle issued a Critical Patch Update this month that addresses this vulnerability and others. Moreover, the flaw has been corrected in Oracle Database 11g. Nevertheless, Shulman pointed out, Imperva ADC had reported the vulnerability to Oracle long ago. But, he noted, it takes time to incorporate fixes into five versions of the technology that run on 20 platforms. And even after patches are released, applying them can take an organization a significant period of time to ensure that the patch doesn’t adversely impact other operations.
The ADC has discovered over 60 commercial application vulnerabilities and has issued numerous advisories. And, Shulman noted, there are a number issues outstanding. Exploiting vulnerabilities in database network protocols is a particular source of concern. “The solution,” Shulman said, “is to create a security layer independent of the data."
The Oracle Critical Patch Update is located here. The Imperva Security Advisory is available here.
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Information Builders and IBM Announce Joint Product Roadmap for DB2 Web Query for System i
At the COMMON 2008 Annual Meeting and Exposition, Information Builders, a leader in production business intelligence (BI) systems, and IBM unveiled a joint roadmap for enhancements to IBM's DB2 Web Query for customers of the i5/OS. Some of the offerings are available this month, and all of them will be available by the end of 2008.
DB2 Web Query is a System i-based BI solution that IBM sells as a replacement for its existing Query/400 reporting system. First released in September 2007, DB2 Web Query was created for IBM by Information Builders and is based on its WebFocus BI tool suite. “In essence, it is a limited version of WebFocus,” Gary Goldberg, vice president of System i Products Group, Information Builders, told 5 Minute Briefing.
A key new feature available now is the Web Query Run Time User Licensing Option, which allows user licensing of DB2 Web Query to be based on the set of reports made available instead of on the number of users who will access the reports. This feature should reduce costs and simplify deployment of DB2 Web Query for most IBM i5/OS customers that only need to run reports. “The Run Time User Licensing feature is absolutely a key feature for the broader deployment of Web Query to the System i marketplace in general,” said Goldberg. “When we originally brought out the product it was one-size-fits-all user-based pricing – pay for an end-user at X dollars a pop and that was it. And that was clearly not what customers need. There are many customers who have occasional users or users who are not going to use the full capability of the product but do need to be able to log on and use the product at some level.”
Also on the roadmap is the Web Query Web Services API and SDK, said Goldberg. This new capability provides application developers with the ability to embed DB2 Web Query content into any application and drive DB2 Report Distributor from any business process. “The System i marketplace as a whole is an application-driven marketplace,” said Goldberg, “and to make a product like WebQuery available as a callable service from any application that an ISV wants to deploy on a System i environment makes for a very valuable symbiosis between the Web Query product and all of those vertical applications which are the main engine that drives System i adoption.”
Additional planned features include a Web Query Report Distributor and a Web Query Excel Plug-In. For more on Information Builders, go here. For more information on IBM, go here.
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Telelogic Announces Enhancements to Rhapsody Model Driven Development Solution including New Eclipse Plug-in
Telelogic has announced a new version of its model-driven development solution, Rhapsody 7.2, available this month, which provides improvements in systems engineering, software asset re-use, and automated documentation and testing. Telelogic is also introducing Rhapsody Eclipse Plug-in, a version of Rhapsody integrated within the Eclipse open source development environment, which will be available this summer.
The product news follows the announcement earlier this month that IBM had completed its approximately $845 million tender offer for the shares of Telelogic AB.
The releases are focused on two themes, Paul Urban, senior product marketing manager for Rhapsody, told 5 Minute Briefing. One is helping software engineers to leverage their existing code and adopt a model-driven development environment, and the other main theme is to help out system engineers by giving them more powerful communications means and the ability to validate their systems designs early in the development process, said Urban. “Both of these releases are supporting those efforts.”
Building on Telelogic’s “Code Respect” initiative previously only available for C++ development, Rhapsody now allows C developers to leverage the benefits of MDD while preserving the code structure, functionality and order. Rhapsody offers the ability to reverse-engineer existing code and then forward-generate identical code, allowing software developers to use the right tools for the job and work at either the code or model level. With Telelogic Rhapsody 7.2, systems engineers can leverage virtual prototyping capabilities using integrated graphical panels to visualize and validate a user mock-up early in the development cycle.
And with the upcoming Rhapsody Eclipse Plug-in, software developers can continue working on existing projects at the code level while gradually adopting MDD within a single familiar development environment. Developers can further streamline their workflow by using Eclipse’s code editing capabilities and gain the benefits of working with an MDD solution all within the same development environment. Using Rhapsody’s reverse engineering and code synchronization capabilities, Rhapsody’s Eclipse Plug-in allows developers to work on the code or model within one complete development environment; the code and model remain in sync and it is easy to navigate from one to the other. Additionally, developers can access debugging at the code or model level using the Eclipse debugger and Rhapsody’s animation with the ability to synchronize breakpoints between them.
Rhapsody 7.2 is available this month. The Rhapsody Eclipse Plug-in and graphical panels will be available in Q3, 2008. For more information about Telelogic, go here. For more information about Telelogic Rhapsody 7.2, go here.
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