Syncsort announces two new data integration solutions offer better Hadoop with enhanced extract, transform and load (ETL).

IBM announced an agreement with The Dannon Company to provide analytics technology to help the yogurt maker maximize its position with consumers.

In just a few weeks, on June 7, IBM's DB2 will mark the 30th anniversary of its launch—which cemented the relational database's role as a cornerstone of the enterprise for many. Not long after the anniversary, a new version of DB2 will become generally available that includes some of the most significant technology advances in the software's history. An innovation called "BLU acceleration" can increase reporting and analytical workload times to the speed of thought, according to IBM. "Top performance and storage efficiency are yours," the company said, "without database tuning, indexes or aggregates." IBM DB2 is a relational model database server developed in 1983. There are three main products in the DB2 family: DB2 for LUW (Linux, Unix and Windows), DB2 for z/OS (mainframe) and DB2 for iSeries (formerly OS/400). The DB2 LUW product runs on multiple Linux and Unix distributions, such as Red Hat Linux, SUSE Linux, AIX, HP/UX and Solaris, and most Windows systems. DB2 also powers the IBM InfoSphere Warehouse edition, which is basically DB2 LUW with a database partitioning feature (DPF), a massive parallel share-nothing data warehousing architecture. eWEEK takes a look at DB2's roots and its future.

Dell's SharePlex will now replicate data to databases like Netezza and Hadoop, while Boomi AtomSphere gets API management.

HP spokespeople say the troubled software business is important to HP's future despite the $8.8 billion write-down and pending lawsuits.

Storing data in Hadoop has become a common practice in IT these days. However, there are some concerns about securing sensitive data in Hadoop. Dataguise, a maker of data security intelligence and protection solutions, has provided us with 10 security best practices for organizations considering or implementing Hadoop. By following these procedures to provide privacy risk, data and security management, enterprises can prevent costly exposure of sensitive data, reduce their risk profile and better adhere to compliance mandates. These practices and procedures come from Dataguise's experience in securing large and diverse environments. The explosion in information technology tools and capabilities has enabled advanced analytics using big data. However, the benefits of this new technology area are often coupled with data privacy issues. In these large information repositories, personally identifiable information (PII) such as names, addresses and social security numbers may exist. Financial data such as credit card and account numbers might also be found in large volumes across these environments and pose serious concerns related to access. Through careful planning, testing, pre-production preparation and the appropriate use of technology, much of these concerns can be alleviated.

HP executives approached SAP about buying the controversial software business, SAP Co-CEO William McDermott told The Times of London.

HP is accused by shareholders of not listening to warnings about Autonomy's accounting issues and of not conducting due diligence leading up to the deal.

NEWS ANALYSIS: SAP's May 7 news announcement follows last October's about the availability of in-memory database services in Amazon Web Services deployments.

NEWS ANALYSIS: Business Intelligence is being transformed by the ability to use massive cloud computing services, big data analytics and huge external data sources. 

Data governance, an important IT best practice that nonetheless is underutilized in enterprises, continues to confuse and frustrate IT managers while running up significant costs with little return. Those involved typically stumble across a few similar challenges such as lack of clarity on where to start, insufficient cross-functional involvement, and a rapidly growing population of experts and vendors offering high price-point applications and services. Individuals and teams exploring and implementing data governance systems are often under pressure to deliver measurable progress. It is not uncommon to hear that data management professionals such as data modelers and database administrators believe that they have no part to play in a data governance strategy. Yet almost any title with the word "data" included in it will be involved with data governance—either directly or indirectly. Here's a look at a number of simple steps that can be taken to implement data governance effectively. Our sources include database tools and developer software specialist Embarcadero Technologies and eWEEK reporting.

Cloudera announced the release of Impala 1.0, its SQL-on-Hadoop solution that enables users to do real-time queries of data stored in Hadoop clusters.

SAP says it still has the heart and passion of a startup, but with offices in 130 countries and more than 55,000 employees, the company hardly looks like one. Yet innovation is alive and thriving at SAP. Driven by Vishal Sikka, executive board member leading technology and innovation, SAP has made a number of bold moves to reinvent itself as a more nimble, innovative business to position itself for the future. From the SAP HANA in-memory computing architecture, which is now driving record growth in SAP's software business, to the philosophy of "design thinking," a holistic, multidimensional approach to product development, Sikka is leading the charge for SAP to push the boundaries of the familiar. For example, through the innovative SAP AppHaus movement, SAP is branching into consumer app development, a new arena for this software giant that has a long history in providing business application solutions for large enterprises. The company is also using SAP HANA to nudge the medical industry into analyzing DNA genome data fast enough to enable real-time personalized medicine. The following slides map out some recent highlights of SAP's innovations.

eWEEK’s Q&A with SAP executive board member and technology lead Vishal Sikka gets to the nitty-gritty of SAP’s HANA in-memory database.

Information is power, and more and more enterprise IT professionals are tapping into the power of big data to better understand what drives their businesses. In the meantime, the information keeps piling up, as data volumes are doubling annually. And roughly 80 percent of that captured data is unstructured and must be formatted using a batch-processing platform such as Hadoop in order to be minable for information. Enterprises want to tap into the important insights that can be gleaned from their data stockpiles, but there is a large caveat: Hadoop was not created with security in mind. In fact, security was an afterthought. As Hadoop becomes more widely adopted in the enterprise, its security limitations are becoming more exposed. This eWEEK slide show covers the biggest security challenges the enterprise now faces regarding big data. Our sources include Brian Christian, co-founder and CTO of secure big data management startup Zettaset; Hadoop distribution provider Cloudera; and eWEEK storage and security reporting.