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GoldenGate on Monday released a tool that promises to help enterprises pin down data discrepancies between active databases.
The tool, Veridata 1.0, compares large volumes of dynamic data, generating instant reports on data that needs repair. Data compression allows for enough efficiency that business processes are affected only minimally, according to GoldenGate Software Inc.s management.
“Its a high-speed, low-impact data comparison solution,” said Sami Akbay, senior director of marketing. “A key attribute is that it does not disrupt ongoing processes on these systems.”
Without such a solution, enterprises that rely on identically replicated data sets have had to compare two systems to make sure data was identical on both sides. That entails requesting data sets from both source and target systems—which is resource-intensive—and then tracking down the differences, Akbay said.
“There have been homegrown solutions,” he said. “You can run database queries. Imagine you have two database tables, each with 2 terabytes of data. Youre suddenly moving 4 terabytes of data and comparing the entire data set. Thats a lot of burden on a network and the systems themselves. On top of it, especially in a highly transactional environment, you may have a thousand transactions taking place every second. Plus you may have 60,000 updates occurring against the database while this comparison takes place.”
Industries where such discrepancies are particularly problematic include healthcare, where records on what medicine has been given to patients are stored and backed up electronically.
“If as its being moved its integrity is compromised, and another doctor is not aware of what was administered and prescribes something that might have adverse effects, that might be one reason you pay a lot of attention that the data is identical,” Akbay said.
Banking faces similar needs. If general ledgers dont match up with the data in an ATM network, for example, its bad news.
Neither of these two industries are ones that can stand much database downtime. “Hospitals cant say for the next 3 hours we wont process data,” Akbay said. “And you cant shut down ATM systems for 5 hours.”
Veridata works through a streamlined process of moving unique digital signatures of each data record, as opposed to the entire record itself. It also has the capability of marking records that are in flux, which records it labels as being “inflight.”
Carl Baylis, assistant director of the Emerging Health Information Technology division of Montefiore Medical Center, in Bronx, N.Y., said that before using Veridata, Montefiore was using other products or tools they wrote themselves, such as output reports that theyd then compare to make sure backed-up data was in sync with production data.
The problem was those tools werent online, and they werent real-time. “When I read my report, it might show I was in sync, but it might take hours to run my report, because I have files with millions of records,” he said.
Montefiore prides itself on being one of the few hospitals that run with 100 percent electronic physician order entry. Doctors use the system online, in real-time, ordering whatever they need, be it lab tests or x-rays, with no paper note-taking involved.
With such a setup, data discrepancies arent acceptable, and downtime isnt an option, Baylis said, which makes Veridata a good fit.
“When your doctors and patients are relying on a system to deliver care in a paperless environment that system needs to be” reliable, he said in a statement. “In matters of life and death, downtime is not an option. Montefiore and EHIT can deliver extremely reliable POE systems and services because of using GoldenGate to provide continuous availability. With GoldenGate Veridata, we can have the peace of mind that our secondary system is up to date and highly reliable.”
Veridata is available immediately. It supports Oracle Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. NonStop databases, with additional support on the way.