New IBM Software Products Based on Xperanto

IBM Simplifies Management and Integration of Business Information With New Software

First-of-Its-Kind Data Management Product Enables Businesses to Improve Productivity and Reduce Costs

Somers, NY, USA. February 04, 2003.

IBM, the worldwide database market share leader, today announced new software designed to help customers access, integrate and analyze all forms of information across and beyond the enterprise. As a result, organizations can slash development time when building next-generation applications, increase efficiencies and reach customers and suppliers at record speed.

Recognizing that most companies are faced with complex IT environments -- a number of different data sources, residing in various computer systems, in different locations and of multiple data types -- IBM is extending its data management portfolio by delivering DB2 Information Integrator software. The new software is in support of IBM's e-business On Demand initiatives, enabling organizations to build on their existing IT infrastructure and reduce the time and costs associated with integrating their diverse data environments.

The new integration software offers the broadest support for open standards that allows businesses to access and integrate both structured and unstructured information, as if it were stored in one place, including XML, e-mail, multimedia, Web Services, Life Sciences and competitive data sources such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server databases.

Companies spend as much as 40 percent of their annual IT budgets on integration, analysts say. They need an infrastructure that connects an explosion of new applications and data sources, coupled with the sheer volume of data throughout the enterprise, with its business partners, suppliers and customers. Today's news builds upon IBM's Business Integration efforts, a $10 billion market opportunity by 2006, according to Dataquest.

The new software offerings, the DB2 Information Integrator and DB2 Information Integrator for Content, are the first products available to customers based on IBM's Xperanto project -- an IBM Research and Development effort that is focused on addressing evolving data management needs. The new open standards software helps businesses leverage their IT investments and access and integrate diverse and distributed data in all formats. The new software introduces:

Increased productivity enabling developers to slash hand-coding requirements in half when integrating two or more relational databases
The ability to access and support real-time information across all platforms including Linux, Unix and Windows and mainframe environments
Advanced cost-based optimization enabling businesses to slash unnecessary run time on searches

In an effort to support the broadest range of development requirements, DB2 Information Integrator software supports two different programming models. The DB2 Information Integrator is tailored to the SQL-based developer community and the DB2 Information Integrator for Content supports a content management programming model. While both offerings provide federated access across both structured and unstructured data, each has tailored features that support the programming model of the developer community they support.

The new software is ideal for applications such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM), where call center operators need to pull together information about customers residing in multiple databases, unstructured sources such as e-mail messages, flat files and other sources. Financial services organizations can tie together in-house customer bank records with investment information from the Internet. And companies in the Life Sciences industry can accelerate drug discovery and time-to-market with an infrastructure that allows them to test hypotheses across data stored in relational databases, genomic and proteomic data stores, spreadsheets, and more. In addition, businesses can increase the value of their existing data warehouse investments by augmenting analysis with real-time information to gain faster insight on their business performance.

Federated Access to Information

DB2 Information Integrator software incorporates IBM's unique federated data management capabilities that reduce the need for organizations to move their data or replace their current IT infrastructure. IBM's approach is a key differentiator versus competitors who promote a rip and replace and centralized strategy. In support of open standards computing, customers can also deploy the new DB2 Information Integrator software based on with their existing technology infrastructure including Oracle and Microsoft databases.

IBM's federated technology leadership, pioneered by IBM Research, allows customers to speed up business integration projects and enables developers to increase productivity in support of integration projects. For example, using a single query, a customer can access and integrate relational data in DB2 and Oracle, images in Documentum, e-mail in Lotus Notes, spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel and Web services generated by WebSphere Application Server. This data is then presented to the customer in a consolidated view. No other database vendor offers this level of federated data management to help customers optimize their existing information assets and technology infrastructure.

Federation capabilities also enable businesses to access and integrate real-time information. For example, if a customer wants to review the net worth of their investment portfolio, IBM's DB2 Information Integrator software can combine stock holding information from account data stored in a relational database with a real-time stock quote from a Web service, accessing the data as if it were in a single database and calculating in real time their net worth and portfolio value.

IBM DB2 Information Integrator software also incorporates enhancements to the query optimizer technology, reducing the burden on IT staffs required for tuning distributed queries. Such enhancements also allow businesses to slash unnecessary run time on searches and increase developer productivity with less hand-coding requirements. IBM's leadership in query optimization is based on 25 years of query optimization research. According to internal tests for integrating multiple data sources, developers can slash coding time in half when integrating two relational databases and can experience even greater productivity with diverse data sources.

DB2 Information Integrator software provides rich XML support both for accessing and integrating XML documents as data sources and generating XML documents as a query result. In addition, DB2 Information Integrator can be called as a Web Service or access other Web services to augment the data source access of built-in transformation capabilities. This fits well within emerging services oriented architectures and B2B strategies.

The new software is also tightly integrated with IBM's WebSphere Business Integration software, providing customers with the most comprehensive business integration infrastructure in the industry including support for application connectivity, business process integration and user interaction as well as the ability to build integration-ready applications on an open services infrastructure. These business integration approaches can be used together or separately to address business integration challenges.

General Availability

The DB2 Information Integrator and DB2 Information Integrator for Content are currently available in beta for customers and partners and can be accessed through their IBM sales associate.

About IBM's Data Management Business

IBM is the worldwide market share leader in the database industry. The combined integrated strength of IBM's data management products, based on DB2, powers the industry's most demanding solutions. IBM is the only data management software vendor to provide customers with integrated solutions for database management, tools, content management, enterprise information integration and business intelligence. For more information, please visit www.software.ibm.com/data.

Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive.

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As a result, organizations can slash development time when building next-generation applications, increase efficiencies and reach customers and suppliers at record speed. Recognizing that most companies are faced with complex IT environments -- a number of different data sources, residing in various computer systems, in different locations and of multiple data types -- IBM is extending its data management portfolio by delivering DB2 Information Integrator software. The new software is in support of IBM's e-business On Demand initiatives, enabling organizations to build on their existing IT infrastructure and reduce the time and costs associated with integrating their diverse data environments. The new integration software offers the broadest support for open standards that allows businesses to access and integrate both structured and unstructured information, as if it were stored in one place, including XML, e-mail, multimedia, Web Services, Life Sciences and competitive data sources such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server databases. Companies spend as much as 40 percent of their annual IT budgets on integration, analysts say. They need an infrastructure that connects an explosion of new applications and data sources, coupled with the sheer volume of data throughout the enterprise, with its business partners, suppliers and customers. Today's news builds upon IBM's Business Integration efforts, a $10 billion market opportunity by 2006, according to Dataquest. The new software offerings, the DB2 Information Integrator and DB2 Information Integrator for Content, are the first products available to customers based on IBM's Xperanto project -- an IBM Research and Development effort that is focused on addressing evolving data management needs. The new open standards software helps businesses leverage their IT investments and access and integrate diverse and distributed data in all formats. The new software introduces: Increased productivity enabling developers to slash hand-coding requirements in half when integrating two or more relational databases The ability to access and support real-time information across all platforms including Linux, Unix and Windows and mainframe environments Advanced cost-based optimization enabling businesses to slash unnecessary run time on searches In an effort to support the broadest range of development requirements, DB2 Information Integrator software supports two different programming models. The DB2 Information Integrator is tailored to the SQL-based developer community and the DB2 Information Integrator for Content supports a content management programming model. While both offerings provide federated access across both structured and unstructured data, each has tailored features that support the programming model of the developer community they support. The new software is ideal for applications such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM), where call center operators need to pull together information about customers residing in multiple databases, unstructured sources such as e-mail messages, flat files and other sources. Financial services organizations can tie together in-house customer bank records with investment information from the Internet. And companies in the Life Sciences industry can accelerate drug discovery and time-to-market with an infrastructure that allows them to test hypotheses across data stored in relational databases, genomic and proteomic data stores, spreadsheets, and more. In addition, businesses can increase the value of their existing data warehouse investments by augmenting analysis with real-time information to gain faster insight on their business performance. Federated Access to Information DB2 Information Integrator software incorporates IBM's unique federated data management capabilities that reduce the need for organizations to move their data or replace their current IT infrastructure. IBM's approach is a key differentiator versus competitors who promote a rip and replace and centralized strategy. In support of open standards computing, customers can also deploy the new DB2 Information Integrator software based on with their existing technology infrastructure including Oracle and Microsoft databases. IBM's federated technology leadership, pioneered by IBM Research, allows customers to speed up business integration projects and enables developers to increase productivity in support of integration projects. For example, using a single query, a customer can access and integrate relational data in DB2 and Oracle, images in Documentum, e-mail in Lotus Notes, spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel and Web services generated by WebSphere Application Server. This data is then presented to the customer in a consolidated view. No other database vendor offers this level of federated data management to help customers optimize their existing information assets and technology infrastructure. Federation capabilities also enable businesses to access and integrate real-time information. For example, if a customer wants to review the net worth of their investment portfolio, IBM's DB2 Information Integrator software can combine stock holding information from account data stored in a relational database with a real-time stock quote from a Web service, accessing the data as if it were in a single database and calculating in real time their net worth and portfolio value. IBM DB2 Information Integrator software also incorporates enhancements to the query optimizer technology, reducing the burden on IT staffs required for tuning distributed queries. Such enhancements also allow businesses to slash unnecessary run time on searches and increase developer productivity with less hand-coding requirements. IBM's leadership in query optimization is based on 25 years of query optimization research. According to internal tests for integrating multiple data sources, developers can slash coding time in half when integrating two relational databases and can experience even greater productivity with diverse data sources. DB2 Information Integrator software provides rich XML support both for accessing and integrating XML documents as data sources and generating XML documents as a query result. In addition, DB2 Information Integrator can be called as a Web Service or access other Web services to augment the data source access of built-in transformation capabilities. This fits well within emerging services oriented architectures and B2B strategies. The new software is also tightly integrated with IBM's WebSphere Business Integration software, providing customers with the most comprehensive business integration infrastructure in the industry including support for application connectivity, business process integration and user interaction as well as the ability to build integration-ready applications on an open services infrastructure. These business integration approaches can be used together or separately to address business integration challenges. General Availability The DB2 Information Integrator and DB2 Information Integrator for Content are currently available in beta for customers and partners and can be accessed through their IBM sales associate. About IBM's Data Management Business IBM is the worldwide market share leader in the database industry. The combined integrated strength of IBM's data management products, based on DB2, powers the industry's most demanding solutions. IBM is the only data management software vendor to provide customers with integrated solutions for database management, tools, content management, enterprise information integration and business intelligence. For more information, please visit www.software.ibm.com/data. Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive.