Sybase Aims to Query Mainframes Faster, Cheaper

The company teams with Informatica to help mainframe customers access data in real time without having to generate reports directly from OLTP systems.

Sybase Inc. and Informatica Corp. have fashioned a one-stop shopping package to help mainframe customers who are looking to squeeze real-time data out of their heavy iron and dont want to go broke doing it.

The two companies earlier this week announced the joint sales and marketing initiative, named Dynamic Operational Data Store. Dynamic ODS is a mainframe data-offloading setup combining Informaticas PowerCenter data integration platform and PowerExchange product with Sybases IQ business intelligence software.

The technology pairing is designed to access data in real time without having to generate reports directly from OLTP (online transaction processing) systems, thereby decreasing mainframe operational costs.

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Charlie Doucot, vice president of sales for Sybase, of Dublin, Calif., says the initiative is aimed at customers in the upper midmarket who are trying to manage the size of their mainframe environments. "As opposed to having that customer take the forklift approach and replace the mainframe with a client/server network, were saying, you can get the business value you need by our solution, by offloading some of that data to a client/server environment in a near-real-time fashion such that you can [access] near-real-time [information] in a Sybase/Informatica environment, where before you were limited by the capacities of the mainframe environment," he said.

Sybase IQs compression technology with data downloading from mainframes enables customers to compress data by as much as 50 percent, Doucot said. That data can then be queried faster through IQ, with results from two to 10 times faster than database competitors who use the technique of building indexes for querying, Doucot said.

Click here to read eWEEK.coms interview with Sybase Senior Vice President Marty Beard.

Sybase is looking to piece together other such offerings, according to Deborah Harrington, senior director of marketing for Sybases Worldwide Channels group. One such area where Sybase might partner with ISVs and give Oracle Corp.—a serious database and BI competitor—a run for its money is in querying and reporting.

"We see a lot of spaces in the market that Oracle in particular is not able to comfortably cover because were a more partner-friendly company to do business with," Doucot said.

For more information on Dynamic ODS, go to Sybases site at www.sybase.com.

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