Five Minute Briefing - Information Management
January 18, 2011
Five Minute Briefing - Information Management: January 18, 2011. A concise weekly report with key product news, market research and insight for data management professionals and IT executives.
News Flashes
Application Security, Inc., a provider of database security, risk and compliance (SRC) solutions for the enterprise, and NEON Enterprise Software, a provider of solutions for mainframe customers, have announced a strategic alliance to deliver enterprise SRC solutions for monitoring database activity on the mainframe. The "compliance tidal wave" that has been hitting IT is now crashing on the mainframe, Josh Shaul, vice president product management, AppSec, tells 5 Minute Briefing. As open systems have succeeded in becoming "much more locked down," regulators are naturally expanding the breadth of their audits to include the mainframes to ensure that proper controls are there as well, he explains. And while it is very hard to hack into mainframe systems, Shaul notes, for authorized users the potential for abuse that exists on the mainframe is the same as in distributed systems.
The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) will present the first event in its 2011 conference series February 13-18 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, with the theme "Building An Enterprise Data Strategy: A Framework For Consistent Information Across The Enterprise." The aim of the 6-day event is to provide attendees with the education they need about how to inventory, govern, integrate, and exploit their data assets. Organizations have "massive amounts of data" as well as a variety of different databases and duplicates of databases, and, as a result, people are not aware of all the data they have and how they can utilize it, Paul Kautza, director of education of TDWI, tells 5 Minute Briefing. The conference will provide classes on how to gain critical executive sponsorship, connect point projects into a unified data management approach, and define and implement a true corporate data strategy that will deliver consistent information across an enterprise.
DBTA Hosts Live Webcast on Effectively Managing the Database Patching Cycle this Thursday
MicroStrategy Inc., a provider of business intelligence software, says that in benchmark tests of its latest software release, MicroStrategy 9.0.2, the software can support more than 100,000 active users while delivering average response times under two seconds. MicroStrategy's high performance and scalability tests consisted of a four-node clustered configuration of MicroStrategy Intelligence Server containing a total of 32 CPU cores, running on commodity Intel-based hardware with the Red Hat Linux ES operating system. A query volume of 560,000 round-trip queries per hour was sustained while supporting over 100,000 active users, which can be extrapolated to a total user population of 500,000 people, the vendor says.
The Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG), a community of more than 20,000 international database and technology professionals, announced it has formed the MySQL Council to address the interests and needs of the broader community of MySQL users serving IOUG constituencies. Initial areas of focus for the MySQL Council will include providing technical articles for the peer-reviewed SELECT Journal, facilitating the development of online education as well as supporting COLLABORATE 11, the annual Oracle user group conference taking place April 10-14 in Orlando, Florida.
Queplix Corp., a data virtualization software vendor, has introduced three new Application Software Blades in Virtual Data Manager enabling companies to integrate social media data with internal corporate systems. Companies can now automatically capture information from FaceBook, LinkedIn and Google Contacts and harmonize it with their own corporate data. According to Queplix, companies typically struggle with how to incorporate and leverage the data within social media communities for business gain. "The value of social media and its potential to enhance corporate initiatives is widely recognized, yet barely tapped," said Mark Cashman, chief executive officer, Queplix. With the new integration capability, Queplix allows organizations to combine data from social media sources with internal information, thus providing a new layer of intelligence to business-supporting functions.
Teradata has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Aprimo, a provider of cloud-based integrated marketing software for approximately $525 million. The transaction is expected to close later this quarter. Aprimo will be integrated into Teradata's operations and will continue to market its products and services under the name Aprimo. Once the acquisition is complete, Aprimo will support the strategy of Teradata's analytic and applications business, including development, marketing, sales, and services going forward.
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