Patch, Provision, Replicate,
Repeat . . . Don't You Have
Better Things to Do?
If you're the type of database administrator
who yearns to manually patch many heterogeneous databases and genuinely takes pleasure in performing routine tasks that you
know ought to be standardized and automated, then GridApp Systems' (http://www.gridapp.com) Clarity 3.2 product line
is probably not a fit for you. If, however,
you're among the growing number of DBAs
who, as Matthew Zito, Chief Scientist for
GridApp Systems, cites, spends "85 percent
of the workday on routine administrative
tasks like patching, replication, and provisioning," then you might just find Clarity
products of interest.
In an industry where solutions to
manage high-value tasks such as performance tuning and database design are the
norm, the Clarity product line seeks to
reduce the time DBAs spend on lower-level manual tasks by providing automated
provisioning, patching, cluster management,
and validation, thus freeing up time and
increasing productivity. The Clarity product
line can automate and standardize database
policy and function from one pane, whether
the database is SQL Server, Oracle, IBM, or
another platform.
Clarity also makes compliance regulations easier to follow. "When we talk to
clients, they say their DBAs are terrified
by Microsoft or Oracle database audits,"
said Zito. He went on to explain that most
DBAs have only a vague idea which databases need patches at a given time. "Before
Clarity, the standard in compliance was
an eighty-page Word document released
by the auditors that the DBAs cut up and
handed out to different departments." With
Clarity, default standards are created by the
administrator and then automatically applied
to every database in the organization. A
reporting trail is created so that a DBA can
see what's missing and what needs immediate attention.
—Sam Davenport
Caché's Jalepeño Technology
Eliminates Object-Relational
Mapping: Es Muy Caliente
InterSystems Corporation (http://www.intersystems.com) recently announced a major upgrade to its
flagship database product: Caché, a multidimensional
database that uniquely combines robust objects and
robust SQL. The upgrade includes innovative technologies
for rapid Web application development that can enhance productivity in shops that rely
on Web-application business. According to Paul Grabscheid, InterSystems vice president of
strategic planning, the new release includes an extensible, high-level development framework called Zen, which is "our implementation of the Asynchronous JavaScript and XML
(AJAX) concept for building rich, dynamic applications that run in browsers." Based on
XML, Zen uses the language to define pages but eliminates runtime parsing and compilation. Because the XML is precompiled, developers can deliver pages faster.
The new release of Caché also includes a new software component, Jalepeño (JAva
LAnguage PErsistence with NO mapping), which gives developers a way to persist Java
objects while eliminating the need for relational mapping. According to Grabscheid,
two things motivate customers to move to Caché: "One, they're developing something
new and they like the object capabilities we provide, and two, they're facing a serious
scalability problem and they see that our solution gives them much better performance."
Applications created with the InterSystems framework can access the Caché database
platform or major relational database platforms including SQL Server, Oracle, and
Sybase, or multiple platforms in a heterogeneous environment.
—Dawn Cyr
Offering Greater Value
for the Data Center
According to Patrick Rogers, vice president of Products and Partners at Network
Appliance (http://www.netapp.com), the
core requirements of the company's SQL
Server–based customers revolve around
enhancing the value of the data center.
Customers want to cut storage costs and
increase utilization, limit the time required
for storage administration, and enhance
data-center performance. To help address
these core needs, NetApp offers professional
services and software products designed to
make a SQL Server database professional's
job easier.
For example, companies that are growing
rapidly or that have a business need to make better use of existing data might want to
take advantage of snapshot technology in
their development and test environments,
or on the back end of decision-support
applications. But quickly deploying multiple
snapshots of a database is complex—the
deployment can take hours or days, and the
storage requirements for such deployments
can be high. NetApp's FlexClone product
lets you instantly replicate data volumes and
data sets without requiring extra storage. And
the company's SnapManager for SQL Server
lets you keep a close eye on all those new
instances. Even if you might not have a lot of
money to throw at extra storage, you can still
make the most of the storage you have.
—Dawn Cyr
