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OuterBay has released a new version of its tool for culling inactive data from databases. Application Data Management Suite 4.0 is designed to be more flexible, more automatic and easier to use.
ADM is an ILM (information lifecycle management) tool that identifies active and inactive data in databases. ADM relocates the inactive data—what users may consider closed transactions—to less expensive servers and storage technologies, while retaining user and application transparency.
According to OuterBay Technologies Inc. CEO Michael Howard, by weeding out a small percentage of inactive data, large-scale databases can get large performance improvements.
For example, by removing 15 percent of a database, the vendor has measured 70 percent performance gains.
In ADM 4.0, a new reload framework allows users to promote and demote data from a primary archive system.
This would be applicable to a company that needs to embark on a restatement, for example, in which case a journal entry from somewhere within, say, the past 10 years has to be updated.
ADM 4.0 automates the retrieval of a select business transaction and the transactions reinsertion into the primary system. The process is wizard-driven.
Howard said that this marks the first time that such data movement has been connected to actual business practices. Previously, movement has been connected to a table or column in a database, or in lower-level infrastructure, it would be files and volumes—in other words, bits and bytes.
“This is connected to how business transactions are described in applications and databases,” Howard said. In ADM, inactive data is identified with metadata. “We know what rows and columns … amount to a particular business transaction, like payroll,” he said.
ADM 4.0 has also gained a wizard-like environment that allows users to override OuterBays rules, algorithms and policies. Within that environment, checks and balances grant what Howard called “flexibility with integrity”—the ability to use the rules you want, but with constraint built in so that you dont get in trouble with regulatory compliance.
“Its important because customers can be more aggressive about data retention policies,” Howard said. “They can remove more dead data from the system and get higher performance and higher ROI and higher stability. Theyll be able to put more inactive information into the archive, and keep it in place for compliance.”
ADM 4.0 is shipping now. OuterBay is headquartered in Cupertino, Calif.