DBTA E-EDITION
August 2010
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Trends and Applications
IBM has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Storwize, a privately held company based in Marlborough, Mass. Storwize provides real-time data compression technology to help clients reduce physical storage requirements by up to 80%, improving efficiency and lowering the cost of making data available for analytics and other applications. With Storwize, IBM says, it is acquiring storage technology that is unique in the industry due to its ability to compress primary data, or data that clients are actively using, of multiple types - from files to virtualization images to databases - in real-time while maintaining performance. "This is in contrast to what we see our competitors doing, which is primarily focusing on compressing data that is inactive, or data at rest - backup data, as an example," explained Doug Balog, vice president of IBM Storage, during a conference call announcing the planned acquisition.
Earlier this year, Andy Flower took over as president of the Independent Oracle Users Group from Ian Abramson. With Oracle OpenWorld right around the corner, Flower talks with DBTA about how the IOUG is changing to best meet the challenges and opportunities presented by the expanding Oracle ecosystem, despite what continues to be a difficult economy. For the IOUG, it is "the year of the member" and it all starts with the database, he says.
First elected to Oracle Applications Users Group board of directors in 2009, David Ferguson became president of the OAUG this year. He talks with DBTA this month about how the users group is getting "back to basics" with educational sessions and networking opportunities as well as the new approaches it is taking to meet its members' evolving needs.
Many see 2010 shaping up as a boom year for cloud computing, with cloud adopters capable of realizing significant reductions in administrative IT costs compared to non-adopters. However, it's not enough to simply develop and implement a cloud strategy. Rather, enterprises must take into account the performance of their cloud-based assets and the impact of the cloud on their end users' and customers' experiences. After all, the apparent cost and elasticity advantages of the cloud won't yield any business benefit if the direct consequence is a poor end user experience. For this reason, businesses considering the cloud must do the due diligence and insist on performance guarantees from cloud service providers that map directly to business objectives - or risk impacting revenue, brand image and customer satisfaction.
Columns - Notes on NoSQL
NoSQL - probably the hottest term in database technology today - was unheard of only a year ago. And yet, today, there are literally dozens of database systems described as "NoSQL." How did all of this happen so quickly? Although the term "NoSQL" is barely a year old, in reality, most of the databases described as NoSQL have been around a lot longer than the term itself. Many databases described as NoSQL arose over the past few years as reactions to strains placed on traditional relational databases by two other significant trends affecting our industry: big data and cloud computing.
Columns - Database Elaborations
Design should be an intention, preferably a planned intention. In that intention, design requires more groundwork than a simple thought-train such as the following, "I planned to write a module that functions; since the module functions, my designs are working." Some situations do exist where true design really is less important than successful functionality. Determining the appropriate level of design and preparation offers an interesting question to every architect. At the lowest level, standards and practices present suitable patterns that can serve as a design skeleton for those low-level or isolated items not requiring a heavy-handed blueprint.
Columns - DBA Corner
What is the most difficult thing about acquiring enterprise software? If you are like most IT technicians, your first inclination was probably something related to cost justification. Let's face it, enterprise software typically is very expensive ... and eventually, something will need to bring costs more in line with value.
Columns - SQL Server Drill Down
Reading Between the Lines on SQL Server 2008 R2 Features
MV Community
Entrinsik, a provider of web-based operational reporting and analysis solutions, has announced the latest release of Informer Web Reporting software, Informer 4.1. The new release provides a plug-in architecture that allows developers to amend and extend core Informer functionality into existing organizational environments.
Revelation Software has announced the availability of a significant new release of OpenInsight (OI) Development Suite, which continues Revelation's commitment to extend OpenInsight by embracing new technologies as well as providing seamless integration with external databases. OI 9.2, which the company has been working on for more than 2 years, includes the new OpenInsight for Web (O4W) and SQL Connector.
Rocket U2 has announced the availability of wIntegrate v6.2.0, which offers new functionality, implementing Secure Shell (SSH) as an alternative to Telnet on UNIX- based systems. wIntegrate is a terminal emulation and host-based application enhancement tool for UniData, UniVerse (U2), and other MultiValue databases.