DBTA E-EDITION
July 2012 - UPDATE
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Trends and Applications
Information availability software provider Attunity has partnered with EMC to offer a high-performance big data replication solution for the EMC Greenplum Unified Analytics Platform, as well as dedicated optimizations to Attunity Replicate from EMC Greenplum. "Enterprise architects have to pay special attention to data flow. Data is their critical asset and right now enterprise architects are really challenged with a ‘data bottleneck,'" Matt Benati, Attunity's vice president of global marketing, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
Big data is one of the most significant industry disruptors in IT today. Even in its infancy, it has shown significant ROI and has almost universal relevance to a wide cross-section of the industry. Why? Big data turns traditional information architecture on its head, putting into question commonly accepted notions of where and how data should be aggregated, processed, analyzed, and stored. Enter Hadoop and NoSQL, the open source data-crunching platform. Although these technologies are hotter than an Internet IPO, you simply can't ignore your current investments - those investments in SQL which drive everything from your data warehouse to your ERP, CRM, SCM, HCM and custom applications.
The volume of data now being stored by businesses is at a point where the term "big data" almost feels inadequate to describe it. The size of big data sets is a constantly moving target, ranging from a few dozen terabytes to many petabytes of data in a single data set. And it is estimated that, over the next 2 years, the total amount of big data stored by business will be four times today's volumes. As business continues its inexorable shift to the cloud, weblogs continue to fuel the big data fire. But there are plenty of other sources as well - RFID, sensor networks, social networks, social, Internet text and documents, Internet search indexing, call detail records, scientific research, military surveillance, medical records, photography archives, video archives, and large-scale e-commerce transaction records.
Oracle has introduced a new migration tool that aims to make it easier for users to migrate data from SQL Server to MySQL. The new migration tool is integrated into MySQL Workbench, which allows the visual design, development and administration of MySQL Databases. According to Oracle, with MySQL Workbench, SQL Server developers and DBAs can easily convert existing applications to run on MySQL, both on Windows and other platforms. In addition, to address the growing demand from business analysts using MySQL for data marts and analytic applications, Oracle has announced a new "MySQL for Excel" application plug-in that allows users to import, export and manipulate MySQL data, without requiring prior MySQL technical knowledge.
Syncsort, a global leader in high-performance data integration solutions, has certified its DMExpress data integration software for high-performance loading of Greenplum Database. Syncsort has also joined the Greenplum Catalyst Developer Program. Syncsort DMExpress software delivers extensive connectivity that makes it easy to extract and transform data from nearly any source, and rapidly load it into the massively parallel processing (MPP) Greenplum Database without the need for manual tuning or custom coding. "IT organizations of all sizes are struggling to keep pace with the spiraling infrastructure demands created by the sheer volume, variety and velocity of big data," says Mitch Seigle, vice president, Marketing and Product Management, Syncsort.
Compuware Corporation has launched a free online cloud service enabling organizations to compare the speed of their website's performance against leading competitor sites. SpeedoftheWeb.org provides a series of industry-relevant indexes with categorized collections of 1,000 of the world's most trafficked websites - as ranked by Alexa and Compuware Gomez benchmarks. As end-user expectations become greater, the cost of poor website performance also grows, both in terms of lost revenues and brand loyalty. In addition, end users are showing less patience for slow-performing websites, according to Compuware. In response to these heightening requirements, organizations need to ensure performance along every spot in the web application delivery chain, Alois Reitbauer, Compuware APM's Web 2.0 and Mobile Performance Expert and author of Java Enterprise Performance, tells DBTA.
Big data analytics provider Datameer has announced that its technology is now integrated into Dell's Emerging Solutions Ecosystem, which offers complementary hardware, software, and services in a pre-packaged bundle. Built with Dell infrastructure, Datameer analytics technology is offered on top of Cloudera's distribution of Apache Hadoop. The software is well suited to organizations that need to make quick decisions based on structured and unstructured data, such as financial services, retail, telecommunications, and Web 2.0 companies. "The advantage to the end user is they can buy all of this from one source, it's all integrated together, it runs seamlessly, and it's an easy solution for people to purchase and use," Joe Nicholson, Datameer's vice president of marketing and business development, tells DBTA.
Jaspersoft, maker of business intelligence (BI) software, today announced availability of Jaspersoft Business Intelligence 4.7, with reports generated by JasperReports Server now give casual users the ability to interact with more of their data. According to Jaspersoft, its open source business model and zero-cost per-user licensing fees make interactive reporting affordable for even the largest scale reporting projects. Additional improvements in Jaspersoft 4.7 include direct native connectivity to big data sources and expanded mobile device support. "This is exciting for a couple of reasons," Mike Boyarski, director of product marketing for Jaspersoft, tells DBTA. "One is that no BI tool out there so far has this level of interactivity for what we call casual BI users."