Database Management Articles
Performance bottlenecks have the potential to effectively cripple an entire organization, which can spell disaster for the enterprise. The lengthy downtime caused by poor database performance interrupts business continuity and reduces end-user productivity, and can cause a direct, negative impact on the organization's bottom line.
Posted November 11, 2009
Oracle has announced the new release of Oracle Berkeley DB Java Edition 4.0 including significant new features for high availability, scalability, and performance.
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
Oracle issued a statement Monday that its acquisition of Sun is essential for competition in the high-end server market, for revitalizing Sparc and Solaris and for strengthening the Java development platform. The company also said it plans to "vigorously oppose" the European Commission's Statement of Objections and that the evidence against the Commission's position is "overwhelming."
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
Altova has announced the availability of Version 2010 of the Altova MissionKit, an integrated suite of XML, database, and UML tools. Version 2010 delivers a large number of new features across the product line for XML editing, data mapping, visual stylesheet designing, UML modeling, database schema analysis, and comparing and merging XML and database content.
Posted November 03, 2009
EnterpriseDB, a commercial software company supporting the PostgreSQL open source database, announced that Red Hat, an open source products and services vendor, has made a financial investment in EnterpriseDB. The company also said it is releasing a new version of Postgres Plus Standard Server.
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
Altova, a data integration vendor, has included Health Level Seven (HL7) and Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) standards support within MapForce Version 2009, an integrated suite of XML, database, and UML tools.
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
Embarcadero, a provider of multi-platform database tools, is adding more graphical capabilities to DB Optimizer to make it easier for developers and DBAs to do SQL profiling and tuning. DB Optimizer, which supports IBM DB2 for LUW, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and Sybase, helps eliminate performance bottlenecks by identifying data-intensive or frequently executed queries, focusing on specific SQL statements through query statistics (CPU, I/O, wait times), and fine-tuning problematic statements
Posted October 27, 2009
HiT Software, a provider of products for database access, integration and replication, has announced Allora 6.0, the newest version of the company's data transformation product.
Posted October 27, 2009
SpringSource, a division of VMware, Inc. and a provider of Java application infrastructure and management software, has introduced SpringSource tc Server Developer Edition, an Apache Tomcat-compatible platform that gives developers deep visibility and relevant information for debugging and improving the performance of their Spring applications.
Posted October 27, 2009
At the recent Oracle OpenWorld event, Oracle announced a series of new enhancements to its Java middleware stack, which incorporates application server and Java tools from last year's BEA acquisition. Dubbed the Oracle Fusion Middleware Application Grid, the offerings are intended to enable faster development and deployments within the Java framework. At the core of Oracle's offerings is WebLogic application server, acquired from BEA, which integrates some functionality of the now discontinued Oracle Application Server. "The foundation of our middleware stack is to enable greater efficiency," Mike Pietch, senior director of product marketing, said in a press conference.
Posted October 21, 2009
Quest Software, a provider of database management tools, announced the next generation of Toad for Oracle, a solution designed to enhance Oracle database development and administration. The new toolset, Toad for Oracle 10, offers enhancements in usability, automation, and education, the vendor says.
Posted October 21, 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
EnterpriseDB, the commercial software company supporting the PostgreSQL open source database, recently announced the release of Postgres Plus Standard Server 8.4, an advanced open source database product that combines the price and performance benefits of a community-developed open source technology, with the full support of a stable commercial entity. PostgreSQL adoption is growing rapidly, and many organizations are now viewing it as an alternative to proprietary database offerings. With this version of Postgres Plus Standard Server, EnterpriseDB is advancing this adoption by giving enterprises the cost benefits of an open source database platform, the performance benefits of a community-developed product, and the reassurance of proven vendor support.
Posted October 20, 2009
At the recent Oracle OpenWorld event, Oracle announced a series of new enhancements to its Java middleware stack, which incorporates application server and Java tools from last year's BEA acquisition. Dubbed the Oracle Fusion Middleware Application Grid, the offerings are intended to enable faster development and deployments within the Java framework. At the core of Oracle's offerings is WebLogic application server, acquired from BEA, which integrates some functionality of the now discontinued Oracle Application Server.
Posted October 19, 2009
IBM had mixed news for the most recent earnings quarter—some segments were down, and others keep growing. Overall, the company grew slightly from last quarter, but was down from a year ago. Total revenues for the third quarter of 2009 were $23.6 billion, up a percent from the second quarter of 2009, and down 7% from the third quarter of 2008.
Posted October 19, 2009
BlueFinity International has introduced the latest enhancement to its .NET development toolset for MultiValue databases, mv.NET with Solution Objects. mv.NET provides a 100% native .NET interface to all major MultiValue databases, allowing .NET developers to access all aspects of their MultiValue systems. The new Solution Objects component set for mv.NET builds upon this existing infrastructure to provide strongly-typed, class-based access to MultiValue databases via the generation of an advanced data abstraction layer.
Posted October 13, 2009
Robert Catalano, Director of Sales, Revelation Software, Discusses New Features in OpenInsight 9.1
Posted October 13, 2009
IBM recently completed the sale of its worldwide U2 database and tools assets to Rocket Software, a global software development firm, based in Newton, Mass. "The entire U2 team worldwide is moving from IBM to Rocket," Susie Siegesmund, director, IBM U2 Data Servers and Tools, IBM Information Management Software, tells DBTA, reiterating sentiments expressed in a letter to customers when the sale was announced, in which she assured them that the change of ownership will be a benefit to U2's product line as well as customers and business partners and will not affect relationships with the U2 business.
Posted October 13, 2009
In this season of recession and financial meltdowns, a common question seems to be, "How big is ‘too big to fail'?" Titans of the financial industry made big bets with lots of risk and, when they didn't pan out, American society overall has to pay the price. But, that aside, the very scale of our financial system, by just about every metric, has reached amazing heights, be that number of financial transactions per second, number of traders, number of funds traded, amount of money changing hands—you name it. This might seem like a tangent to the point of databases in general and SQL Server in particular, but there are actually quite a few similarities in my mind.
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
The art of building software solutions is comprised of many moving parts. There are project managers coordinating tasks; business analysts gathering requirements; architects establishing standards and designs; developers assembling processes; DBAs building database structures; quality assurance staff testing components for compliance to requirements; and an array of supporting roles providing for functional environments, infrastructure, security, etc. A common task that everyone must perform is estimating the effort necessary to deliver results. Certainly for simple and/or repetitive tasks there is no need for recurrent estimating, since applicable values are based on past known metrics. For example, creating the third or fourth version of the same database within the same environment should allow a DBA to incorporate costs experienced previously as a guide. And unless something unusual occurs, such estimates should be on target. However for creative tasks, such as designing new structures, or building new kinds of processes, there will be no previous documented events to refer to. Faced with these circumstances, individuals usually are not allowed to shrug and say, "it will take as long as it takes," and be left alone.
Posted October 13, 2009
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) can be considered the most significant compliance standard of our time. Since the passing of the legislation 7 years ago, companies have had to rethink the way they use technology to store company data. This transformation has been anything but an easy ride for companies today, and has significantly impacted the role of the CIO within an organization.
Posted October 13, 2009
In art, the expression "less is more" implies that simplicity of line and composition allow a viewer to better appreciate the individual elements of a piece and their relationship to each other to make a whole. In engineering, "less is more" when you accomplish the same work with fewer moving parts. And when dining out, "less is more" when the portions may be smaller, but the food is so much better and satisfying. In IT, the adage is more accurately stated today as "less does more." As IT increases in complexity, mainframe organizations are being asked to handle greater workloads, bigger databases, more applications, more system resources, and new initiatives. All this, without adding—and sometimes while cutting—staff. In addition, IT is undergoing a serious "mainframe brain drain," as the most experienced technicians retire, taking with them their skills and detailed knowledge of the mainframes' idiosyncrasies.
Posted October 13, 2009
Oracle has unveiled the latest release of Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise, with PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Capital Management (HCM) 9.1, PeopleSoft Enterprise PeopleTools 8.50, PeopleSoft Enterprise Learning Management 9.1 and PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal 9.1.
Posted October 08, 2009
Embarcadero Technologies, a provider of multi-platform database tools and developer software, has announced the general availability of Embarcadero's flagship data modeling suite, ER/Studio Enterprise 8.5. This newest version of Embarcadero's data modeling tool combines process modeling, data modeling, application modeling and reporting into a comprehensive design and modeling solution.
Posted October 08, 2009
Compuware Corporation and Gomez today announced the signing of a definitive agreement for Compuware to acquire privately-held Gomez, Inc. Compuware is an application performance management software company, and Gomez is a vendor in web application experience management. The $295 million cash acquisition is expected to close in November of 2009.
Posted October 07, 2009
xkoto, a database virtualization software company, recently announced the availability of GRIDSCALE 5.1 for Microsoft SQL Server and IBM DB2 databases. GRIDSCALE is an active-active solution that virtualizes the database infrastructure. It enables businesses to distribute application loads horizontally across multiple database copies, resulting in better reliability and performance than that of more costly and complex legacy clustering solutions. This latest release of GRIDSCALE adds new features that enhance the performance and capabilities of both SQL Server and IBM DB2 databases.
Posted October 07, 2009
DBSopic, a developer of software solutions for database performance optimization, has announced the release of Qure version 1.5. Qure is DBSophic's solution for performance tuning of Microsoft SQL server (2005 and 2008) databases. It is a software solution for automatic analysis, identification, and resolution of slow performance issues in these databases. Qure 1.5 is a valuable tool that helps reduce operational costs associated with managing the performance of mission-critical databases, increasing operational efficiency, and reducing unwarranted expenses, thus granting organizations a rapid return on investment.
Posted October 07, 2009
Oracle has announced the availability of Oracle Application Testing Suite (ATS) 9.0, an open and integrated application testing solution for Oracle applications, web and SOA applications.
Posted October 01, 2009
Continuing its approach of providing tailored master data management (MDM) solutions for key industries, Oracle announced the availability of Oracle Higher Education Constituent Hub. As a tailored MDM solution for higher education institutions, the new Oracle Higher Education Constituent Hub enables customers to reduce IT costs and lower implementation times by eliminating the need to build customized solutions.
Posted October 01, 2009
Oracle recently introduced new capabilities for its Accelerate Program, including new Accelerate Solutions, Oracle Business Accelerators, financing options and deployment methods.
Posted October 01, 2009
Working with Sybase and ISUG, Bradmark Technologies will showcase its premier monitoring and event management solution at cities across the U.S. this fall.
Posted September 23, 2009
At the Sybase Techwave Symposium in Washington, D.C., last month, Sybase announced the availability of its data management and analytics servers, including Sybase SQL Anywhere, Sybase IQ, and Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise, for the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) environment. With these products, customers will have the ability to quickly develop and deploy on-demand data systems for mobile, analytics and transactional applications.
Posted September 23, 2009
Also at Techwave last month, Sybase announced the newest release of Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) Cluster Edition, its enterprise data management solution that reduces the complexity of deploying a database application across a shared disk server cluster environment.
Posted September 23, 2009
CA, Inc. today announced CA Database Management r12 for DB2 for z/OS, and CA Database Management r12 for IMS, the latest versions of its mainframe database management solution. The new versions feature enhancements for performance management, database administration, and backup and recovery.
Posted September 21, 2009
Oracle has introduced new releases of Oracle Berkeley DB and Oracle Berkeley DB XML, two members of the Oracle Berkeley DB family of open source, embeddable databases.
Posted September 15, 2009
Ntirety Inc., which provides both software tools/appliances and database experts to proactively monitor, manage, and optimize customer's Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and MySQL databases, has released Ntrust version 4, the newest generation of its proprietary database administration platform that enables Ntirety to remotely and securely service customers' databases. With the version 4 release, Ntrust is now available as either a physical appliance that resides at a client's site or as a virtualized offering to meet the needs of customers utilizing cloud computing.
Posted September 15, 2009
InterSystems Corporation has introduced technology additions to its InterSystems CACHÉ high-performance object database. Available now in CACHÉ 2009, the new features provide enhanced web services security, reporting, and system management and monitoring.
Posted September 14, 2009
Revelation Software is planning several road shows for the last quarter of 2009 and is soliciting input from users about where to host the events. Possible cities include: Boston, Mass.; Cincinnati, Ohio; Chicago, Ill.; Houston, Tex.; London, United Kingdom; Nashville, Tenn.; Seattle, Wash.; Sydney, Australia; Tampa, Fla.; Westwood, N.J.; and Vancouver, Canada. Votes for cities can be cast at the Revelation website. City selections will be announced in September.
Posted September 14, 2009
A member of the Quest International Users Group and IT specialist at Shell Canada Ltd., Sue Shaw took on the role of president of the users group in June. She talks with Database Trends and Applications about what drew her in as a member and her goals for the PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, and Oracle Utilities association now that she is at the helm.
Posted September 14, 2009
This year, despite a turbulent economy marked by painful layoffs in many sectors, database professionals appear to be weathering the storm. In fact, database professionals reported higher incomes and bonuses this year over last. Still, a sizeable segment of professionals saw changes in their jobs as a result of economic conditions, and many are concerned going forward about the impact of tighter budgets on their departments' performance.
Posted September 14, 2009
Microsoft SQL Server has been a favorite for years for organizations that want to implement business intelligence (BI) functionality - even in traditionally non-Microsoft shops. Especially since the SQL Server 2005 release, the ROI of a Microsoft solution coupled with the ease of implementation has driven healthy adoption of the DBMS for BI. And the integration of SQL Server 2008 with Microsoft Office, SharePoint Server, and PerformancePoint Services for delivering BI to end users has created an even stronger end-to-end platform.
Posted September 14, 2009
Clerity Solutions, a provider of mainframe migration and modernization solutions, today introduced the Clerity Migration and Modernization Analysis Process (MMAP) for Adabas Natural environments. The new service is targeted at helping companies analyze migration options for Software AG environments, including the business impact and implementation requirements involved in moving to other platforms and application architectures.
Posted September 14, 2009