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Business Intelligence and Analytics

The world of Business Intelligence and Analytics is evolving quickly. Increasingly, the emphasis is on real-time Business Intelligence to enable faster decision making, and on Data Visualization, which enables data patterns to be seen more clearly. Key technologies involved in preparing raw data to be used for Business Intelligence, Reporting and Analytics – including ETL (Extract, Transform, and Load), CDC (Change Data Capture), and Data Deduplication – support a wide range of goals within organizations.



Business Intelligence and Analytics Articles

With the increased merging of disparate core business systems in the enterprise - as well as the emergence of additional systems in the form of enterprise resource management, customer relationship management, hierarchical storage strategies, and other business-driven initiatives - many companies today find themselves moving mountains of data on a daily basis. Business intelligence (BI) initiatives in particular typically rely on data warehousing strategies to provide critical information and reports to management in support of business decisions. Such strategies often require the timely transfer of enormous amounts of data from line-of-business systems. Too much time taken in data transfer can adversely impact a company's agility and could mean lost windows of business opportunities. It can also encroach on processing resources better devoted to core business applications.

Posted January 11, 2010

Virtual Bridges has introduced the newest version of its virtual desktop infrastructure suite with the release of Virtual Bridges' VERDE 3.0 software. Key new features in VERDE 3.0 include full support for Microsoft Windows 7 clients; VERDE Cloud Branch support, which provides the ability to replicate centrally-managed gold master images to remote sites, eliminating WAN latency; VERDE LEAF (Live Environment Accessible Format) technology, which allows any computer to be turned into a thin client with VDI and telephony integrated; enhanced clustering, enabling management of multiple virtual machines per user; and integrated VOIP integration for Skype support built into the SMART client. VERDE 3.0 reaches out to the Mac community by providing access to Windows and Linux virtual desktop sessions from Mac clients. Mac users can now participate in VDI deployments together with Windows and Linux access points.

Posted January 06, 2010

The Linux technology, development model, and community have all been game-changing influences on the IT industry. Recently, the Linux zone on the developerWorks website reflected on the important events and technological advances of the past 10 years surrounding the open source operating system, and framed up the significance of each.

Posted January 06, 2010

Virtual Bridges has introduced the newest version of its virtual desktop infrastructure suite with the release of Virtual Bridges' VERDE 3.0 software. Key new features in VERDE 3.0 include full support for Microsoft Windows 7 clients; VERDE Cloud Branch support, which provides the ability to replicate centrally-managed gold master images to remote sites, eliminating WAN latency; VERDE LEAF (Live Environment Accessible Format) technology, which allows any computer to be turned into a thin client with VDI and telephony integrated; enhanced clustering, enabling management of multiple virtual machines per user; and integrated VOIP integration for Skype support built into the SMART client. VERDE 3.0 reaches out to the Mac community by providing access to Windows and Linux virtual desktop sessions from Mac clients. Mac users can now participate in VDI deployments together with Windows and Linux access points.

Posted January 06, 2010

The Linux technology, development model, and community have all been game-changing influences on the IT industry. Recently, the Linux zone on the developerWorks website reflected on the important events and technological advances of the past 10 years surrounding the open source operating system, and framed up the significance of each.

Posted January 06, 2010

Oracle has acquired Silver Creek Systems, Inc., a provider of product data quality solutions. Silver Creek's DataLens product data quality solution is designed to simplify complex product descriptions commonly found in many industries, enabling enterprises to more accurately manage product data. "Lack of standardized product data continues to be a challenge for many enterprises," says Hasan Rizvi, senior vice president, Oracle Fusion Middleware Product Development. "With the addition of Silver Creek, Oracle is extending its industry leading data integration offering with complementary solutions to enhance product data quality and help customers get more accurate and consistent product data for use across their enterprise."

Posted January 06, 2010

Oracle has announced that project management and enterprise resource planning (ERP) are now integrated, with the availability of Oracle Application Integration Architecture (AIA) Release 2.5 PPM Process Integration Packs (PIPs),

Posted January 06, 2010

Sybase, Inc. today announced that its IQ 15.1 column-based analytics server, working with the IBM Power 595 system and running the AIX 6L version 6.1 Operating System, achieved the best overall performance result currently published among all non-clustered systems for the TPC-H benchmark at the 3TB scale factor . In addition, the Sybase and IBM solution also recorded the best current overall price/performance result among non-clustered systems that deliver over 100,000 QphH for the TPC-H benchmark at the 3TB scale factor .

Posted December 16, 2009

Sybase, Inc. has announced it is leveraging the newest version of its column-based analytics server—Sybase IQ 15.1—and its global mobile messaging reach, enabling the company to provide deep analytics functionality on the Sybase 365 mobile services platform that will address the needs of mobile operators, financial institutions and enterprise customers. The first offering, to be launched in Q1 2010, will be a hosted analytics solution for mobile operators, providing them with improved quality of service, a greater insight into their off-network messaging traffic, and enabling them to better execute revenue generating activities around these trends.

Posted December 16, 2009

Onix Systems Group Inc., a provider of budgeting solutions for the healthcare industry, and Entrinsik, Inc., a provider of operational reporting and analysis solutions, have formed a partnership to integrate Informer Web Reporting into the Onix Budget System.

Posted December 16, 2009

Ashwood Computer, Inc., which specializes in MultiValue database technology, and Wynne Systems, Inc., a provider of business intelligence software, have formed a partnership to offer Wynne Systems' InfoManager business intelligence software to the MV community. According to the vendors, the new partnership will enable Ashwood to provide a high quality software as a service (SaaS) BI product to the MultiValue community while leveraging Ashwood's strong services capability.

Posted December 16, 2009

Information Builders, a provider of business intelligence solutions, and ParAccel, which offers the ParAccel Analytic Database, a massively parallel (MPP) columnar database management system (DBMS) for data warehousing and analytics, have announced a strategic partnership to speed the selection and implementation of customized advanced analytic solutions.

Posted December 15, 2009

InterSystems Corporation has announced reseller agreements with two new InterSystems application partners. Management Information Tools, Inc. (MITS) and LifePoint Informatics have partnered to help medical laboratories provide timely, accurate reporting services to healthcare providers.

Posted December 14, 2009

As we enter the next decade of the millennium, we will see information technology becoming more ubiquitous, driving an even greater share of business decisionmaking and operations. IT has proven its muster through the recent downturn as both a tactical and strategic weapon for streamlining, as well as maintaining competitive edge. Now, as we begin the next round of economic recovery, companies will be relying on IT even more to better understand and serve their markets and customers. Yet, there are many challenges with managing a growing array of IT hardware, software, and services. To address these requirements, businesses continue to look to approaches such as analytics, virtualization, and cloud computing. To capture the trends shaping the year ahead, Database Trends and Applications spoke to a range of industry leaders and experts.

Posted December 14, 2009

Rocket Software recently completed the purchase of the UniData and UniVerse Servers and Tools assets from IBM. Susie Siegesmund, now vice president and general manager for the U2 brand under Rocket, talks with Database Trends and Applications about why the timing was right for this move and what U2 customers and partners can expect under the new ownership.

Posted December 14, 2009

Talend, an open source data integration software provider, has announced the availability of Talend Integration Suite LCp (life cycle platform). This new enterprise data integration platform extends the Talend Integration Suite to provide Fortune 500 organizations with a broad set of enterprise features, ranging from automated testing and code validation to multi-environment project repository management, to better facilitate enterprise-wide data integration projects and deployments.

Posted December 08, 2009

SOA Software today announced its "Atmosphere" cloud services governance initiative, which creates a unifying brand for a suite of SOA and cloud services governance products that the company will deliver through 2010. Atmosphere's integrated set of products will implement, enforce and audit common policies through various stages of service life cycles, enabling cloud service platforms to automatically scale based on the SLAs and measured performance of the services and processes.

Posted December 07, 2009

BMC Software has introduced a solution that helps IT operations managers to see impending performance bottlenecks and other issues before they actually happen. The vendor's latest product, BSM for Proactive Operations, features enhancements to its line of IT operations solutions that are part of its Business Service Management (BSM) platform. The predictive analytics capabilities have been built into the latest BMC BladeLogic, BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management, BMC Capacity Management and BMC Atrium solutions.

Posted December 07, 2009

Complementing its existing suite of Value Chain Planning applications, Oracle has announced the availability of Oracle Rapid Planning to help companies improve their ability to quickly adapt to unplanned supply chain events. Rapid Planning is a new product, created from the ground up with brand-new technology, Oracle's John Bermudez, senior director, planning product strategy, tells 5 Minute Briefing. It is designed to enable planners to rapidly replan their supply and demand, and react to changes that have happened between their weekly planning runs such as the opportunity presented when a customer calls in and wants to know if they can double the size of their order, and the challenges presented by an urgent engineering change, an unexpected production shortfall or a supplier quality issue.

Posted December 02, 2009

Infobright, an open source data warehousing company, and Talend, an open source data integration company, have announced the availability of two integrated virtual machines for data warehousing and business intelligence. The first virtual machine combines the Infobright Community Edition analytic database with the Talend data integration tool, Talend Open Studio. The second virtual machine bundles these same two products with Jaspersoft's open source report server, JasperServer Community Edition, to deliver an end-to-end business intelligence solution.

Posted December 01, 2009

Calpont Corporation is a database software company that provides column-oriented technology optimized to handle analytics, business intelligence and read-intensive application deployments. Recently, Calpont announced the availability of its open source database software, InfiniDB Community Edition. Enabled via MySQL and purpose-built for an analytic workload with column-oriented technology at its core, InfiniDB Community Edition delivers a full-feature scale-up solution that supports the rapidly increasing demand for open source analytics databases solutions.

Posted December 01, 2009

MicroStrategy, a provider of business intelligence software, today announced that its free reporting software package, MicroStrategy Reporting Suite, provides a seamless interface to Microsoft Analysis Services. Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) provides online analytical processing and data mining functionality for business intelligence applications.

Posted November 24, 2009

Integrating technology from its acquisition of GoldenGate Software into the Oracle Data Integration suite of solutions, Oracle has announced Oracle GoldenGate, which delivers low-impact real-time data integration and replication technology to Oracle Fusion Middleware and provides a comprehensive, heterogeneous data integration platform.

Posted November 18, 2009

jBASE International has introduced an enhancement to its jEDI Development Kit that improves the jQL performance for the entire jEDI suite. Recent benchmark results demonstrated performance levels very close to-and in some cases surpassing-native jBASE files.

Posted November 18, 2009

Integrating technology from its acquisition of GoldenGate Software into the Oracle Data Integration suite of solutions, Oracle has announced Oracle GoldenGate, which delivers low-impact real-time data integration and replication technology to Oracle Fusion Middleware and provides a comprehensive, heterogeneous data integration platform.

Posted November 17, 2009

IBM announced what it says is the world's largest private cloud computing environment for business analytics, supporting more than a petabyte of information, or the equivalent to 20 million four-drawer filing cabinets filled with text, which stacked end-to-end would circle the entire planet. The analytics cloud will be made available for both internal IBM use and as services for customers. The internal deployment for IBM employees is called Blue Insight, while the customer offering—based on a similar architecture—is called IBM Smart Analytics.

Posted November 17, 2009

SharePoint360 recently announced that it has been accepted into a Microsoft early adoption program for new upcoming business intelligence products. While early adoption programs span many technologies and generally only engage Microsoft customers, SharePoint360 says it was selected as a result of its work in highlighting Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 within Microsoft SharePoint Server.

Posted November 17, 2009

Panorama Software, a provider of proactive Business Intelligence (BI) solutions, has announced its plans for the next release of its flagship product suite NovaView. Panorama's next release will extend its Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services support to natively support Microsoft's new PowerPivot technology (formerly known as Project Gemini). SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) is Microsoft's online analytical processing (OLAP) technology, and PowerPivot is the name for Microsoft's next major update to SSAS.

Posted November 17, 2009

IBM announced what its says is the world's largest private cloud computing environment for business analytics, supporting more than a petabyte of information, or the equivalent to 20 million four-drawer filing cabinets filled with text, which stacked end-to-end would circle the entire planet. The analytics cloud will be made available for both internal IBM use and as services for customers. The internal deployment for IBM employees is called Blue Insight, while the customer offering—based on a similar architecture—is called IBM Smart Analytics.

Posted November 16, 2009

Southeast Community College is using Informer, decreasing the time required for data evaluation and collection, Entrinsik has announced. Using Informer, time required for data evaluation and collection decreased dramatically and Southeast was able to create one record with all the required elements and then export to an Excel macro file for additional data manipulation, much of which can now be done using the "Add Calculations" feature of Informer 4.0. "The whole process from start to upload is now just a few minutes compared to an hour previously," notes Duane Roth, IT programmer/analyst, at the college.

Posted November 11, 2009

Informatica today announced version 9 of its data integration platform with the theme of "Enabling the Data-Driven Enterprise." The Informatica platform is a comprehensive offering that provides for enterprise data integration, cloud data integration, B2B data exchange, and data quality across the whole enterprise. Major new features in version 9 of the platform focus on the areas of SOA-based data services, pervasive data quality, and Business-IT collaboration.

Posted November 10, 2009

Quest Software announced two significant product releases in the SQL Server performance management space at PASS Summit last week in Seattle. The latest release of Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise, Quest's monitoring and diagnostics tool, now featuring business intelligence monitoring, coupled with the debut of Foglight for SQL Server, enables database administrators to proactively detect, diagnose and resolve SQL Server performance issues.

Posted November 10, 2009

Aster Data, a provider of data warehousing solutions for "big data" applications, yesterday announced Aster Data Version 4.0, which the company describes as the industry's first "Massively Parallel Data-Application Server." Aster Data 4.0 allows companies to embed applications inside Aster Data's MPP (massively parallel processing) data warehouse, so businesses can now store, analyze and speed processing of terabytes to petabytes of data. The ability to push applications down into the MPP database also opens a new opportunity for companies to deliver new interactive, big data applications.

Posted November 03, 2009

Attunity, a provider of real-time data integration and event capture software, has introduced a suite of Operational Data Replication (ODR) solutions integrated with Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) which is designed to enable customers to replicate data in real-time across a set of heterogeneous data sources at an affordable price point. The solutions are designed to enhance business intelligence, improve business operations, and reduce total costs.

Posted November 03, 2009

IBM recently announced new business analytics offerings designed to help clients better manage and control their unstructured and structured data in a unified manner, while providing valuable insight into their content across the enterprise. The volume of unstructured data found on websites and social networking sites, in digital files, portals, databases and customer comments, is increasing exponentially. Typically, organizations manage this unstructured information separately from their structured data found in applications and databases. By compiling and analyzing both structured and unstructured information, organizations can garner business insights from unlimited volumes of text from emails, documents, blogs, wikis and websites and change the way they do business.

Posted November 03, 2009

IBM announced an expansion of its enterprise mashup portfolio that incorporates the latest version of IBM Mashup Center and a new offering called IBM Cognos 8 Mashup Service.

Posted November 02, 2009

Sybase, Inc. last week reported financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2009. "The team continued to execute very well and enabled us to deliver our best-ever third quarter results in the company history," John Chen, chairman, CEO and president of Sybase, said during an earnings call announcing the results. The company achieved third quarter records in total revenue, operating income, operating margin, net income, EPS, and cash flow from operations.

Posted October 29, 2009

Noetix Corp., a software provider that automatically generates business intelligence content from enterprise applications, recently introduced Noetix Analytics for Oracle E-Business Suite, a packaged analytics solution that greatly speeds the process of implementing a data warehouse. Noetix has been providing content for real-time reporting for Oracle applications for 15 years, and the addition of packaged analytics now enables them to deliver an end-to-end business intelligence solution for Oracle applications.

Posted October 28, 2009

Southeast Community College is using Informer, decreasing the time required for data evaluation and collection, Entrinsik has announced.

Posted October 28, 2009

David Roper has been named vice president of sales at Kore Technologies. Kore provides a range of professional services and applications for the Rocket Software U2 and Microsoft SQL Server databases. Key products include KommerceServer, an advanced framework for building e-commerce web solutions, and Kourier Integrator, an application designed for system integration and business automation.

Posted October 28, 2009

Just days after Rocket Software completed the purchase of the UniData and UniVerse Servers and Tools assets from IBM, Susie Siegesmund, now vice president and general manager for the U2 brand under Rocket, took time to talk about why the timing was right for this move and what customers and partners can expect under the new ownership. Here, some excerpts from that interview. Read the full interview in the December issue of Database Trends and Applications.

Posted October 28, 2009

Endeca Technologies, Inc., a search applications software company, announced that it will OEM PowerCenter and PowerExchange from Informatica Corporation, and that it has expanded its relationship with SAP Business Objects. Endeca will integrate Informatica's PowerCenter and PowerExchange with its Information Access Platform for improved enterprise search, and will integrate SAP Business Object's Xcelsius software and Intelligent Search software for faster and easier deployment of search applications and query federation inside the enterprise.

Posted October 27, 2009

Attunity Ltd., a provider of real-time data integration and event data capture software, introduced a set of solutions based on a new concept coined ‘Operational Data Replication' (ODR), designed to enable the large market of Oracle customers to replicate data in real-time to and from Oracle databases, at an affordable price point. The solutions, designed to enhance business intelligence (BI), improve business operations and reduce total costs, were presented at last week's Oracle Open World conference.

Posted October 21, 2009

Yesterday marked the beginning of the annual Teradata Partners User Group conference with a flurry of announcements from the enterprise data warehousing leader focused on new product innovations and partner developments. "Information is power, but intelligence is transformative," James Vollmer, president of the Partners steering committee, announced to a buzzing room after stepping out of a custom Teradata-orange muscle car during the opening keynote.

Posted October 20, 2009

Noetix Corp., a software provider that automatically generates business intelligence content from enterprise applications, has completed the acquisition of privately-held business analytics company, Jaros Technologies Corp., for an undisclosed sum.

Posted October 13, 2009

Aster Data, a provider of data analytics and management platforms for "big data" applications, has announced the availability of a new Aster-Hadoop Data Connector, which utilizes Aster's patent-pending SQL-MapReduce capabilities for two-way, high-speed, data transfer between Apache Hadoop and Aster Data's massively parallel data warehouse.

Posted October 13, 2009

MITS, developer of advanced reporting and business intelligence software for the MultiValue database market, has introduced version 7.1 of MITS Discover, the company's OLAP business intelligence system. This latest release includes new capabilities for increased ease of use and enhanced user productivity, as well as new database support.

Posted October 13, 2009

As my regular readers know, I am an avid reader, especially of technology books. And every now and then I review some of the more interesting database-related books in the DBA Corner column.

Posted October 13, 2009

Pentaho Corporation, a commercial open source business intelligence and data integration software vendor, has announced the acquisition of technology assets from LucidEra, a pioneer in software-as-a-service (SaaS) business intelligence. The new technology will be packaged as "Pentaho Analyzer Enterprise Edition" and extends Pentaho's capabilities to enable business users to intuitively analyze information, adding another SaaS-ready product to Pentaho's BI portfolio.

Posted October 07, 2009

Kalido, a provider of information management software for enterprise data governance, announced that the latest version of the Kalido Information Engine which will be generally available by the end of October 2009. The Kalido Information Engine is a business model-driven, best-practice based platform that can automatically feed information to end-users through their business intelligence tools. With the engine, users can quickly model business scenarios, and deliver reliable, consistent and accurate data. It includes such features as workflow, embedded data matching, a full audit trail, role-based security, and more.

Posted October 07, 2009

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