New releases of the Oracle Big Data Appliance and Oracle Big Data Connectors are now available. Oracle Big Data Appliance X3-2 is an engineered system of hardware and software that has been upgraded to include Intel's new processors and the latest release (4.1) of Cloudera's Distribution including Apache Hadoop (CDH) and Cloudera Manager, as well as the new Oracle Enterprise Manager plug-in for Big Data Appliance.

The University of Minnesota, a top research institution comprised of five campuses, 65,000 students and 25,000 employees, has made systematic changes and improved database administration efficiency with Oracle Exadata Database Machine. By hosting its IT environment on two Oracle Exadata Database Machine half racks, the university consolidated more than 200 Oracle database instances into fewer than 20, enabling it to reduce data center floor space and total cost of ownership.

At OpenWorld, Oracle's annual conference for customers and partners, John Matelski, president of the IOUG, and CIO for Dekalb County, Georgia, gave his perspective on the key takeaways from this year's event. Matelski also described the user group's efforts to help the community understand the value of Oracle's engineered systems and deal with the broad implications of big data, and how the IOUG is supporting Oracle DBAs in their evolving roles.

Tervela Turbo is now certified on CDH4 (Cloudera's Distribution Including Apache Hadoop Version 4). Introduced in October, Tervela Turbo, a high-performance data movement engine, helps Cloudera customers implement mission-critical Hadoop systems with reliable data capture, high-speed data loading into HDFS, disaster recovery for Hadoop, and ETLT data warehousing. Tervela has also joined the Cloudera Connect Partner Program.

DataMotion has introduced a new version of its SecureMail Gateway, an intelligent monitoring solution that uses policy-based encryption and Exact Matching functionality to prevent data leakage and protect sensitive information in email messages and file attachments. The automated solution takes email security and compliance out of the hands of employees to minimize human error, ensure strict policy enforcement company-wide, and make it easier for organizations to protect information in transit and adhere to privacy regulations.

Progress Software, a provider of software for connecting business applications to data and services, has released DataDirect Connect and DataDirect Connect XE for ODBC 7.1. The releases provide fast, reliable, secure and scalable connectivity for Apache Hive, as well as expanded support for cloud databases including Microsoft SQL Azure. DataDirect Connect and DataDirect Connect XE for ODBC 7.1 also offer new features for IBM DB2 10.1, IBM DB2 pureScale 9.8, Teradata 14, and Microsoft SQL Server 2012.

Compuware Corporation, a technology performance vendor, announced that REALTECH AG, a provider of software solutions for enterprise-wide IT management and SAP consultancy, is incorporating Compuware APM - dynaTrace Data Center Real User Monitoring (DC RUM) - into the latest release of its IT service management software, theGuard! ServiceManagementCenter. This will enable REALTECH to enhance application performance driven by end user experience across SAP, web, non-web and cloud applications. "With today's complex application environment, it is impossible to manage and control IT service quality with traditional operational management products," according to Blair Drenner, vice president of strategic business development for Compuware's APM business unit.

Micro Focus, a provider of enterprise application modernization solutions, announced it is shipping a new release of its COBOL application migration toolset, with support for Microsoft's latest operating system and integrated development environment. Visual COBOL 2.1 also includes many enhancements designed to facilitate an improved application developer experience, as well as deliver an upgrade path for core business applications. "With support for the Windows 8 platform, Visual COBOL provides even greater developer productivity, collaboration, and quality improvements while reducing their costs and time to market," Ed Airey, Micro Focus product marketing director for COBOL Products, tells 5 Minute Briefing.

While no one can dispute the importance of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to organizational performance and competitiveness, executives in charge of these systems are under intense pressure to stay within or trim budgets. Close to half of the executives in a new survey say they have held off on new upgrades for at least a few years. In the meantime, at least one out of four enterprises either are scaling back or have had to scale back their recent ERP projects due to budget constraints.

Kore Technologies has announced KommerceServer Mobile Edition, providing the capabilities of KommerceServer webStoreFront and webPortal in a compact mobile package. The new mobile edition is intended to be a complement to Kore customers' corporate websites. The mobile edition enables end users to browse a company web catalog, make online purchases, and access their account histories using a streamlined interface designed for the requirements and workflow of the mobile user.

Attunity Ltd., a provider of information availability software solutions, has officially launched Attunity CloudBeam, a fully-managed data transfer SaaS platform for Amazon Web Services (AWS) Simple Storage Service (S3). With its beta completed, the high-performance data transfer solution was unveiled and demonstrated live at the AWS re: Invent Customer and Partner Conference from in Las Vegas, NV. "This is aimed at folks today that are using AWS or will be using AWS for all kinds of use cases where data is core to their strategy," Matt Benati, vice president of Global Marketing at Attunity, tells DBTA. "All these use cases demand the movement of data and it really has to be a frictionless movement of data at scale. That is what Attunity does best."

At SAPPHIRE NOW + SAP TechEd co-located in Madrid earlier this month, SAP announced new solutions leveraging the SAP HANA platform. The new solutions aim to enable real-time planning, reporting and analysis on large-scale volumes of data, new sense-and-respond scenarios and personalized interactions with consumers.

SAP is planning to deliver six new SAP mobile apps for Windows 8. SAP also announced forthcoming support for Windows 8 development on the SAP Mobile Platform as well as security enhancements to the SAP Afaria mobile device management solution. Through these apps, platform support and security enhancements, SAP said it intends to extend business processes to Windows 8 to accelerate a business' ability to run better with devices of various form factors. The announcements were made at SAPPHIRE NOW + SAP TechEd in Madrid.

Twenty startups from the SAP Startup Focus program have signed commercial agreements to go productive with the SAP HANA One platform on Amazon Web Services (AWS), according to SAP. Since the launch of the SAP Startup Focus program six months ago, more than 800 startups from 17 countries were evaluated and 153 were selected for participation.

Kore Technologies has announced KommerceServer Mobile Edition, providing the capabilities of KommerceServer webStoreFront and webPortal in a compact mobile package. The new mobile edition is intended to be a complement to Kore customers' corporate websites. The mobile edition enables end users to browse a company web catalog, make online purchases, and access their account histories using a streamlined interface designed for the requirements and workflow of the mobile user.

Big data is here, offering both vast opportunities — as well as vexing challenges — for every organization it touches. For a number of years, it has been understood that to be of value, information needs to be readily available, as close to real time as possible, to users in any location. Now, with the onset of "big data," the task gets more daunting. "These are all increasing the demands on both transactional and analytics data systems," says Bernie Spang, director of database software and systems for IBM.

Jeff West, president of Quest International Users Group, joined by Jonathan Vaughn, Quest's executive director, talked with DBTA at Oracle OpenWorld about what's ahead for 2013. The group has launched smaller, product-concentrated events to support JD Edwards and PeopleSoft users' specific areas of interest, and expanded its range of online offerings for users who may not be able take advantage of in-person conferences. Plans are underway to help members learn about PeopleSoft 9.2 coming in March and to prepare for the looming end of support for JD Edwards World. As always, says West, Quest continues to help get information to members from Oracle and their peers. "It is always about return on investment and aligning IT with the business. That is always on the top of people's minds."

A new educational webcast examines the results of the 2012 IOUG Test, Development & QA Survey, and covers the best practices and issues that it highlights. Mining the data assets being gathered from all corners of their enterprise, including transactions, customer data, employee input, and information about market conditions, has been essential to companies in uncovering new opportunities, but, in the rush to deliver results, many IT and development departments take shortcuts within the testing process, taking live data right out of production environments to run through testing, development and quality assurance processes.

Oracle, which in September acquired substantially all of the assets of Skire, a provider of capital program management and facilities management applications, has completed the integration of the new Skire products into its Primavera product line, Mike Sicilia, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Primavera, tells 5 Minute Briefing. The combination is aimed at helping organizations manage their projects with more predictability and financial control, improving profitability and operational efficiency.

Five years ago, Radio Frequency ID (RFID) seemed posed to revolutionize commerce. Way back in 2003, Wal-Mart announced that it would be requiring that RFID tags - so called "electronic barcodes" - be attached to virtually all merchandise. Many- myself included - became convinced that the Wal-Mart directive would be the tipping point leading to universal adoption of RFID tabs in consumer goods and elsewhere.

Oracle, which in September acquired substantially all of the assets of Skire, a provider of capital program management and facilities management applications, has completed the integration of the new Skire products into its Primavera product line, Mike Sicilia, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Primavera, tells 5 Minute Briefing. The combination is aimed at helping organizations manage their projects with more predictability and financial control, improving profitability and operational efficiency.

Pentaho Corporation, a business analytics provider, has announced new capabilities in its data integration and business analytics platform, including Instaview, an instant big data discovery application, and Pentaho Mobile for iPad. According to the company, the new capabilities will enable IT developers, data analysts and business users to move from data to decisions more quickly, and are included in the 4.8 release of Pentaho Business Analytics Enterprise Edition.

At Enterprise World, OpenText's annual customer conference, the company unveiled OpenText Cloud, which aims to provide all OpenText software as cloud-based offerings, in addition to the existing on-premises products. OpenText provides enterprise information management software that enables companies to manage, secure and leverage their unstructured business information. OpenText Cloud provides customers with anytime, anywhere access to OpenText's EIM solution portfolio in the cloud, including more than 20 ready-to-use applications and services.

Kore Technologies has announced KommerceServer Mobile Edition, providing the capabilities of KommerceServer webStoreFront and webPortal in a compact mobile package. The new mobile edition is intended to be a complement to Kore customers' corporate websites. The mobile edition enables end users to browse a company web catalog, make online purchases, and access their account histories using a streamlined interface designed for the requirements and workflow of the mobile user.

Real-time operational intelligence provider Splunk has announced the general availability of Splunk Enterprise 5, the latest version of the company's flagship product. The new release includes added features to create a platform for developers building big data applications. "Even as data volume and complexity are growing exponentially, the time people are willing to wait for answers is shrinking," observes Guido Schroeder, senior vice president of products, Splunk.

Melissa Data, a provider of contact data quality and direct marketing solutions, announced expanded access to its collection of data quality tools for all editions of SQL Server 2012, including Enterprise, Business Intelligence and Standard, via SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) as well as the SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition's Data Quality Services. Melissa Data solutions include tools to profile, cleanse, verify, and match contact data, including address, name, phone and email.

MapR Technologies, Inc., provider of the MapR Distribution for Hadoop, has formed a partnership with Hadapt, which offers a data analytics platform for natively integrating SQL with Apache Hadoop. The partnership enables customers to leverage MapR's Hadoop distribution in conjunction with Hadapt's Interactive Query capabilities to analyze all types of data, structured, semi-structured and unstructured, in a single, enterprise platform. Partnerships such as the one with Hadapt enable a broad community of users to have access to Hadoop data while also leveraging the existing skill sets of those users, Jack Norris, vice president of MapR, tells 5 Minute Briefing.

Five years ago, Radio Frequency ID (RFID) seemed posed to revolutionize commerce. Way back in 2003, Wal-Mart announced that it would be requiring that RFID tags - so called "electronic barcodes" - be attached to virtually all merchandise. Many- myself included - became convinced that the Wal-Mart directive would be the tipping point leading to universal adoption of RFID tabs in consumer goods and elsewhere.

For years, data warehouses and extract, transform and load (ETL) have been the primary methods of accessing and archiving multiple data sources across enterprises. Now, an emerging approach - data virtualization - promises to advance the concept of the federated data warehouse to deliver more timely and easier-to-access enterprise data. These are some of the observations made at Composite Software's third Annual Data Virtualization Day, held in New York City. This year's gathering was the largest ever, with nearly 250 customers and practitioners in attendance, Composite reports.