DataMirror Introduces Integration Suite 2005

by Alex Woodie

DataMirror is launching a new bundle of software and services designed to help companies with their data integration and compliance projects. Integration Suite 2005, announced yesterday, is built around a new release of the company's flagship data replication product, Transformation Server, and includes auditing, high-availability, and mobile database tools, as well as services. DataMirror says the bundle addresses the emerging two-pronged problem of data integration and regulatory compliance, while saving customers up to 50 percent, compared with buying the products separately.

Integration Suite 2005 brings together many of the products DataMirror has developed or acquired over the years. At the core of the new suite is Transformation Server, which accounts for the bulk of the company's license revenue. But DataMirror is throwing practically all of its products into the Integration Suite soup, including its LiveAudit real-time auditing software; its Java-based PointBase database (which functions as the suite's metadata repository); its XML connector for databases, DB/XML; its Oracle-based integration and replication products, Constellar Hub and iReflect for Oracle; its iFederate data consolidation product for mainframes; and even iCluster and High Availability Suite, its resiliency products for OS/400 servers.

"It's melding together all of our products, everything from integration, audit compliance, and protection, to solve complex and sophisticated integration problems customers have," says Nigel Stokes, DataMirror's chairman and chief executive. "Depending on what platform they're doing integration work on, and depending on whether they want data protection, we can include iCluster, or iReflect for Oracle and Constellar Hub technology," or iFederate for mainframe, he says.

TRANSFORMATION SERVER 5.2

At the core of Integration Suite 2005 is a new release of Transformation Server, which provides replication among DB2/400, DB2 UDB, Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase, Teradata, and its own PointBase database management systems. IT shops call on products like Transformation Server when they need to move a lot of data; such is the case with large scale data warehousing, business intelligence, CRM, data auditing and compliance, and e-business projects. DataMirror uses the term "capture, transform, and flow," or CTF, as opposed to "extract, transform, and load" (ETL), to describe the real-time advantages that Transformation Server holds over competing ETL tools that work only in batch mode.

DataMirror has delivered more sophisticated database update functions with Transformation Server 5.2, including summarization, row consolidation, and adaptive applies. There is also an enhanced management GUI, featuring new wizards, increased replication options for data warehousing environments, new role-based security options, and a new data capture mechanism for Oracle databases called Oracle Redo Log (which forms the basis for the iReflect for Oracle product). This release also fully supports Oracle 10g and i5/OS (OS/400 V5R3), the company says.

The company has also introduced three "complex update" features that allow Transformation Server to do some nifty manipulation of database tables. Collectively, the new summarization, row consolidation, and adaptive apply features should provide users with several benefits, including more flexible database design, easier querying and reporting capabilities, and less processor and storage requirements.

Summarization, as one might expect, allows users to create a single summary table from multiple tables, such as for a daily order table. Row consolidation allows users to merge data from multiple database tables into one or more rows in a subscription (or target) table, in either a 1:1 format, in which changes to a single row affects only one row in the target table, or in a 1: many format, in which changes to a single row can be felt in many rows of a target table.

Adaptive apply allows database actions, such as insert, update, delete, and upsert, that have occurred on the source table to be automatically applied to the target database. Previously, users would have needed to write separate exit programs in RPG, C, or other languages to handle these complex functions. "Now it's generically in the product line," Stokes says.

AUDITING COMPLIANCE IN 2005

Because of upcoming deadlines for complying with new federal mandates, DataMirror is seeing demand pick up for its LiveAudit product, which captures and creates an audit trail (in real time) of all updates, deletes, and other changes made to data stores. Some companies are required to be in compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on November 15, and that is driving some business, Stokes says. "LiveAudit is a big driver right now," Stokes says. "Integration and audit is where the major growth is right now."

Right now, many companies appear to be buying services and researching their compliance strategies, Stokes says, which is delaying the purchase of any software they may ultimately need, to become compliant. "It's not a Y2K-type deadline to become compliant. We haven't seen the full investment in software," he says. "They're going to be told this year where the gaps are."

Auditing is a "continuous business improvement" that requires input from the board of directors, Stokes says. "It's an iterative process; not everybody's going to have things perfect this year," he says. "We're launching it now and calling it Integration Suite 2005, to be ready for that market as it develops."

Integration Suite 2005 and Transformation Server 5.2 are available now. While DataMirror didn't provide detailed pricing, company officials said customers buying more than one product can save 50 percent off the cost of license fees when they buy the Integration Suite 2005 bundle. For more information, contact the company at www.datamirror.com.