Embarcadero Technologies, a provider of software solutions for application and database development, today announced a major new XE5 release of its portfolio of database tools: ER/Studio, DBArtisan, Rapid SQL, DB Optimizer and DB Change Manager. The new offerings add support for the latest database management system (DBMS) platforms, including newly enhanced support for Teradata.
With the updated portfolio Embarcadero is placing emphasis on scale in a big way, said Henry Olson, Embarcadero director of product management. Embarcadero customers are already managing some of the world’s largest relational databases and have also begun to embrace innovation in large scale data management, he observed, noting that Hadoop and MongoDB are among the leading technologies Embarcadero is starting to see being adopted. However, he emphasized, the company does not see those newer technologies displacing or replacing existing relational technology but providing a complement to those for an enhanced big picture view.
Big data, with big models and big applications, requires close collaboration across big teams, Olson said. This results in scale challenges that are impacting customers. The XE5 release is a step toward alleviating the pressure and, he added, Embarcadero will have a number of other releases throughout the year building on tise theme of scale.
ER/Studio XE5 Adds First-Class Support for Teradata
The new ER/Studio XE5 release adds extended support for Teradata, recognized as a leading provider in enterprise data warehouses, enabling data professionals to better manage their data warehouses from logical and physical models. The new tools bring proprietary scale and data warehouse capabilities to Teradata customers who need to use Multi-Level Partitioned Primary Indexes (MLPPI) and temporal data types.
The new support is a key element in Embarcadero’s heterogeneous strategy, said Olson. For a number of years, Embarcadero has had first-class support for the major database technologies and with this release, Embarcadero has elevated Teradata to that same level of support. “With our support for Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, and Sybase, our customers already have great insight into their operational systems, and this then allows them to see their entire picture, including this data hub from the same toolset,” said Olson.
Teradata has extended standard SQL with temporal data types, making it easier to query a Teradata database and see trends over time, and this is a key area in which it differs from operational systems which are more concerned with the here and now, explained Olson. Teradata also has some proprietary indexing technology and now Embarcadero is supporting its Multi-Level Partitioned Primary Indexes, a key enabler to rapid response times for complex queries over large data sets. In addition, Embarcadero has introduced optimized alter capabilities so that the tool can now directly produce change scripts to that are optimized for Teradata’s capabilities, so that it makes the changes to the database table with the minimum cost and downtime.
ER/Studio also updates database support to Oracle 12c and SQL Server 2014, as of the most recent CTP release from Microsoft. ER/Studio XE5 also extends the ability of the tool to access memory on workstations, which has had a significant effect in tests with customers. Providing access to more workstation memory speeds up key teamwork operations, said Olson.
Rapid SQL XE5 and DBArtisan XE5 Support Latest Releases of Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase, and DB2
Rapid SQL XE5, a tool for cross-platform SQL development and debugging, and DBArtisan XE5, a tool for cross-platform administration and management, have been enhanced to include support for Oracle 12c, SQL Server 2012, Sybase ASE 15.7 and IBM DB2 z/OS 10 and LUW 10. Both tools also now provide native 64-bit operating system support and new Windows 8 support.
Embarcadero has also extended the model repository to add both definitions from the business community as well as deployment information, to provide a complete view of the enterprise data assets. With the new version of CONNECT, metadata management and collaboration include enhanced tool tips and alerts showing expanded metadata and data security and compliance alerts so customers can better understand, use and protect the data, thus improving productivity and quality.
“A lot of people think the that the work of data quality is done when the data is written to the disk but the work is not done until the data has been properly used and interpreted, and so by providing inline tool tips as people are working with the data, they are able to understand what it means and they can interpret the results they are seeing correctly,” said Olson. By enabling the ability to add governance information within the tools, if there are specific policies that apply to data elements such as that a number must be marked for non-production deployment, users see a little alert alongside that data element as they are working with it. As a result, CONNECT supports broader use in the community of the work that has been done by the architecture team, said Olson. This is a key theme, he noted, that Embarcadero will be building on throughout the year - extending support for collaboration between the various elements of the organization.
To learn more, visit www.embarcadero.com.