IBM Unveils Informix Dynamic Server 11.5
Yesterday, IBM unveiled a new version of its Informix Dynamic Server (IDS), code-named “Cheetah 2.” The new release is tuned for cluster server environments, and uses information management techniques inspired by IBM's mainframe systems. According to IBM, IDS is the first non-mainframe data server to provide clustered data centers with low-cost continuous data availability and disaster recovery, regardless of geographic location or distance between backup data center sites. “This is a low cost clustering solution drawn from our years of experience with System z,” Bernie Spang, IBM’s director of database market management, told 5 Minute Briefing. “It is easy to deploy and maintain. You don’t need a lot of expensive hardware to guard against a single point of failure. And you are not paying extra administration costs.”
IDS 11.5 features
enhancements bolstering reliability and transaction performance,
and enabling users to reduce the number and cost of servers required.
By enabling customers to manage the same amount of data with fewer
hardware servers, IDS 11.5 requires fewer software licenses, lowers
administration costs, and delivers energy and space savings.
When multiplied
across the hundreds or thousands of applications or systems distributed
throughout a business, IDS 11.5 significantly lowers the cost for
massively distributed data management, according to the company.
IDS 11.5 has also been more tightly integrated with other solutions in the IBM data management portfolio, including IBM Optim Data Growth, Data Privacy and Test Data Management solutions, which were added to the IBM Information Management portfolio with the recent acquisition of Princeton Softech.
According to Spang, IDS 11.5 data server is a strategic element of IBM's Information Management software portfolio and delivers exceptionally fast OLTP performance, high reliability and low cost administration. It is a leading integrated data server in many industries such as retail, telecommunications, government/public sector, and travel and entertainment. This new release, Spang said, will help grow IDS’s footprint. Indeed, some analysts attribute an acceleration in the growth rate of IBM database products to an increased use of IDS. IDS 11.5 will be available worldwide beginning on May 6. More information can be found here.
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IRI Releases Test Data Software for Application Development
Innovative Routines International (IRI), developer of the CoSort data manipulation suite for open systems, has announced that it is now shipping RowGen Version 2, test data software for application development, load testing and outsourcing. RowGen eliminates the need for testing with real data, and overcomes traditional limits of low load volumes and inaccurate data. “We think we have the high end of test data,” David Friedland, vice president of business development, told 5 Minute Briefing. RowGen delivers high performance, high volume data.
RowGen V2 builds large test sets in production table and file structures by leveraging existing data models and metadata, sophisticated data generation and selection techniques, built-in data transformations, and custom formatting functions. “The DDL is compliant with every database,” he said. “We use the same engine as with CoSort.” RowGen V2 creates test data for Oracle, Sybase, SQL Server, Teradata, IBM DB2 UDB, packaged applications such as PeopleSoft, and Informatica, and interdependent flat files.
According to Friedland, there are many drivers for the need for test data for application development independent of actual production data. Often, Friedland noted, compliance issues preclude the use of production data for testing and development. Moreover, using production data can have an impact on performance, he added.
Using GUI or 4GL front-ends, RowGen users can customize and transform their test files to reflect their business rules and production report formats. For audit purposes, RowGen creates XML job logs that help companies comply with GLBA and HIPAA requirements in testing environments. The RowGen test data definition file (.DDF) format is supported by the Meta Integration Model Bridge, which automatically converts third-party metadata for use in RowGen, allowing BI, ERP, ETL and data modeling users to generate accurate test data for their applications. “We think this will be a core product for use,” Friedland said. For more information, go here.
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Apatar Inks Deal with CDYNE for Phone Verification
Apatar, a provider of open source software tools for the data integration market, announced the CDYNE Phone Verification connector for the Apatar Open Source Data Integration toolset. The new connector determines the validity of any U.S. or Canadian phone number using CDYNE Web services, all without coding. It enables any business user to verify and filter customer phone numbers extracted from databases such as MySQL, Microsoft SQL, and Oracle, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and CSV/TXT files, applications including Salesforce.com, and SugarCRM, and the top Web 2.0 destinations including Flickr, Amazon S3, and RSS feeds. “This is a very important deal,” Ludmila Radzevich, vice president of business development, told 5 Minute Briefing. “We want to do more than just sending data around. We can do integration and cleansing and verification.”
The combination of contact data from many sources introduces myriad opportunities for error. The Phone Verification service identifies the phone numbers in your list that have new area codes following a NANPA split and replaces incorrect area codes. If the area code is incorrect or missing, Phone Verification can be used to identify the error or return the corrected one to update your data.
According to Radzevich, Apatar plans to build additional appliances with other vendors of data quality services. In the future, she said, the company would like to add a service that provides the verification of company data as well. “We already provide the connectivity to the databases,” she said, “but we can be used for more than just ETL.” For more information, go here.
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Xactly Adds Analytics Module to On-Demand Sales Compensation Management Application
Xactly Corp., a provider of on-demand sales performance management solutions, yesterday announced Xactly Analytics, which offers analytic capabilities on top of post-sales data. Xactly Analytics is an add-on module to the company's flagship product, Xactly Incent, an on-demand sales compensation management application, which aggregates post-sales data into a secure on-demand repository as part of the process of calculating a customer’s incentive compensation.
Xactly Analytics taps into this set of post-sales data to provide pre-built analytics, metrics, ad hoc reporting, and Web-based executive dashboards and scorecards targeted to the sales performance analysis needs of sales and finance management.
“We are in a very unique position as an on-demand player because of the data that we have to aggregate just to pay incentive compensation accurately,” Karen Steele, vice president of marketing at Xactly, told 5 Minute Briefing. “It puts us in a very unique position to offer some post-sales data, if you will, that customers could previously not get their hands on, particularly if they were using on-premise solutions,” said Steele.
“Within a hosted repository, 100 percent on-demand, with the customer never having to go to IT and never having to build a data warehouse, we have some of the richest data,” she observed. This includes factual data on what was sold, by whom, through what channels and what configurations of products, at what price, with what discounts, and how each sale was compensated.
Xactly Analytics provides views of key sales performance management metrics, including sales incentive analysis, product performance analysis, and sales performance analysis by sales team, product or region. It includes automated data workflow processes that transform and aggregate business data brought together by Xactly Incent to provide executives, sales managers and finance managers with better visibility into incentive spending.
Currently in beta release, Xactly Analytics is scheduled for general availability in early June 2008. “Xactly Incent is on the AppExchange and the Analytics will just show up as another tab,” said Steele. “We are also integrated with Oracle Siebel CRM on Demand, as well.” For more information, go here.
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Oracle Builds Partner Ecosystem for Application Integration Environment
Since its release last year, Oracle has aggressively built the partner ecosystem around its Application Integration Architecture. “Our ISVs and SIs have been educated about AIA,” Jose Lazares, vice president of Oracle’s application development, told 5 Minute Briefing. “We have our proof points. The core foundation is out and our partners believe that they can add value.”
Oracle AIA delivers business process-based integrations across Oracle, third-party and custom applications. Oracle AIA provides pre-built, standards-based, sustainable integrations that connect applications together and can generate significant cost savings for customers. In addition to a collection of core integration objects and Web services, AIA includes best practices for application integration. The goal, Lazares said, “is to reduce the overall cost of integration and improve interoperability, not just for Oracle applications but all applications.”
Oracle has integrated several “front office” applications, most notably, Siebel CRM on Demand and “back office” applications itself using AIA. In addition, through the Oracle Application Integration Architecture for Partners program, qualified partners pre-build integrations to AIA standards. Oracle reviews and validates that the partner integration meets required standards. Oracle plans to work with partners to develop targeted, vertical integrations in which Oracle will own the intellectual property and the partner will take the solution to market. As a model, Oracle and Satyam Computer Services, a global consulting and IT services provider, announced a co-development agreement to build Oracle Application Integration Architecture (AIA) Process Integration Packs for Enterprise Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). Satyam will collaborate with Oracle's application development teams to create an enterprise PLM integration solution between Oracle’s Agile PLM and Oracle E-Business Suite solutions.
Over the next year, in addition to new technology announcements, Oracle hopes to establish centers of excellence in three to five different industries to accelerate the use and deployment of the AIA framework, Lazares said. “It will be more industry-specific,” he said. For more information, go here.
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