A new toolset designed to streamline common and complex tasks associated with developing, administering and optimizing Oracle databases, has been announced by Embarcadero. The new toolset, called DB PowerStudio for Oracle, combines several of Embarcadero's most popular database tools into a suite that is intended to make it easier for Oracle developers and DBAs to shorten database development and administration times, and to improve the performance and availability of their databases. The toolset is available in a Developer Edition and a DBA Edition. The new release follows the introduction of a similar toolset by Embarcadero for SQL Server DBAs and developers.

Talend, an open source integration tools vendor, has announced the release of Talend Integration Factory, a production-ready distribution of the popular open source enterprise service bus (ESB) from the Apache Camel project. This announcement follows the December 2010 introduction of Talend Service Factory, a repackaged distribution of Apache CXF, optimized for the enterprise. The product initiatives leverage tools from SOPERA, which Talend acquired in November.

Idera, a provider of Microsoft SQL Server management and administration tools, has announced the latest version of its SQL Server backup and recovery solution, SQL safe 6.5. According to Idera, SQL safe reduces database backup time by up to 50% over native SQL backups, reduces backup disk space requirements by up to 95%, and enables complete "hands-free" automated backup of an organization's SQL Server infrastructure while ensuring compliance with backup and recovery policies.

Okay, IBM's Watson got a little flummoxed about airport names at Chicago versus Toronto, but chalk it up to nervousness at his first live TV appearance. Overall, however, the supercomputer - running on 2,880 POWER7 cores in a cluster of 90 IBM Power 750 servers on Linux - won handily over Jeopardy's all-time reigning human champions, proving the computers have the capability to learn and respond to natural language queries steeped in culture, subtleties and wordplays.

SHARE convenes on February 27th in Anaheim, with an agenda packed with industry initiatives and knowledge-sharing on the latest best practices and technology trends. In this exclusive Q&A, SHARE president Janet Sun provides her vision for SHARE in the coming years.

IBM representatives will be at the High Performance Computing Linux Financial Markets event to highlight the benefits of IBM systems and Linux in High Performance Computing. The show and conference will be take place April 4 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, NY, and IBM is a gold sponsor of the event.

Did you miss a webcast covering important information about technologies you need to learn more about? IBM offers replays on-demand of webcasts presented by IBM experts and partners.

Dr. David Ferrucci, the scientist leading the IBM Research team that has created the Watson supercomputer, will host a keynote session on IBM's Jeopardy! project at The Linux Foundation's annual End User Summit in March. "Watson" will compete on Jeopardy! against the television game show's two most successful contestants. The man vs. machine Jeopardy! competition will air on February 14, 15 and 16, 2011, with two matches being played over three consecutive days.

Red Hat recently announced the general availability of the sixth update to its Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 platform to all active subscribers. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.6 provides a broad set of bug and security fixes, new hardware enablement and back-ports of enhancements in areas such as networking, virtualization, web services, security authentication and file systems. According to Red Hat, the changes introduced in 5.6 include a total of approximately 2,000 individual fixes, as well as approximately 340 individual enhancements and hardware enablement changes.

EnterpriseDB, which provides products, services, support and training based on the PostgreSQL open source database project, has announced the availability of three components that add security and replication technology for community PostgreSQL Server users - SQL/Protect, PL/Secure and xDB Replication Server EnterpriseDB's Postgres Plus Standard Server 9.0 delivers the latest features in PostgreSQL 9.0, plus value-added tools and services providing organizations with a complete enterprise-ready database installation.

The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, has announced its 2011 event schedule and the latest expansion of its Linux conference, LinuxCon, to Europe. LinuxCon Europe will take place October 26-28, 2011 in Prague, Czech Republic. The Linux Foundation has also released the Call for Presentations for its full 2011 event lineup, which includes LinuxCon conferences in North America, Japan, Brazil and Europe, as well as other events focusing on embedded Linux in both North America and Europe.

IBM representatives will be at the High Performance Computing Linux Financial Markets event to highlight the benefits of IBM systems and Linux in High Performance Computing. The show and conference will be take place April 4 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, NY, and IBM is a gold sponsor of the event.

Did you miss a webcast covering important information about technologies you need to learn more about? IBM offers replays on-demand of webcasts presented by IBM experts and partners.

Dr. David Ferrucci, the scientist leading the IBM Research team that has created the Watson supercomputer, will host a keynote session on IBM's Jeopardy! project at The Linux Foundation's annual End User Summit in March. "Watson" will compete on Jeopardy! against the television game show's two most successful contestants. The man vs. machine Jeopardy! competition will air on February 14, 15 and 16, 2011, with two matches being played over three consecutive days.

Red Hat recently announced the general availability of the sixth update to its Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 platform to all active subscribers. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.6 provides a broad set of bug and security fixes, new hardware enablement and back-ports of enhancements in areas such as networking, virtualization, web services, security authentication and file systems. According to Red Hat, the changes introduced in 5.6 include a total of approximately 2,000 individual fixes, as well as approximately 340 individual enhancements and hardware enablement changes.

EnterpriseDB, which provides products, services, support and training based on the PostgreSQL open source database project, has announced the availability of three components that add security and replication technology for community PostgreSQL Server users - SQL/Protect, PL/Secure and xDB Replication ServerEnterpriseDB's Postgres Plus Standard Server 9.0 delivers the latest features in PostgreSQL 9.0, plus value-added tools and services providing organizations with a complete enterprise-ready database installation.

The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, has announced its 2011 event schedule and the latest expansion of its Linux conference, LinuxCon, to Europe. LinuxCon Europe will take place October 26-28, 2011 in Prague, Czech Republic. The Linux Foundation has also released the Call for Presentations for its full 2011 event lineup, which includes LinuxCon conferences in North America, Japan, Brazil and Europe, as well as other events focusing on embedded Linux in both North America and Europe.

Many vendors in the enterprise IT space have only been around for a few years at most, but IBM now can lay claim to the century mark.

Sepaton, Inc., a provider of enterprise-class disk-based data protection platforms, unveiled its next-generation platform, consisting of version 6.0 software, which drives its new S2100-ES2 Series 1910/2910 system. The new platform delivers grid scalability of both performance and capacity; high performance; multi-protocol support; high-reliability; and deduplication. The new product is both an enabler of private-cloud computing as well as a platform for the data protection capabilities required in enormous scale-out storage environments.

Oracle has announced a new enterprise tape storage product, which, the company says, provides high performance and low total cost of ownership at one-third to one-fifth the floor space of any tiered storage, archive or backup solution. The StorageTek T10000C tape drive "has the highest capacity and the highest throughput of anything out there by far," Tom Wultich, director of product management for Tape Storage at Oracle, tells 5 Minute Briefing. The StorageTek T10000C provides 5TB native capacity and 240MB/second native throughput, representing capacity and throughput increases over competitive products that help customers reduce the cost of enterprise storage while providing fast backup and archive solutions.

Serena Software, a provider application development and management tools, announced that its mainframe application development technology supports Java, HFS, and Eclipse. The ChangeMan ZMF Client Pack is designed to help mainframe customers take advantage of application deployment capabilities that reduce downtime, costs and risks typically associated with release management.

Speedware, a provider of legacy modernization solutions, announced that it has signed an agreement with COBOL-IT to distribute COBOL-IT's open source COBOL in the North American market and to provide North American based support to COBOL-IT users. According to the terms of the agreement, Speedware will be the latest North American sales and support center, providing 24/7 technical support, re-hosting/system integration services, and training.

Verizon Communications Inc., a global telecom provider, announced it intends to acquire Terremark Worldwide Inc., a provider of managed IT infrastructure and cloud services, at a total equity value of $1.4 billion. Verizon expects to close the tender offer late in the first quarter of 2011. This transaction will accelerate Verizon's "everything-as-a-service" cloud strategy by delivering a portfolio of scalable on-demand solutions to business and government customers globally, through a unified enterprise IT platform and unique business cloud offerings that leverage the companies' collective strengths.

SOA Software, an SOA and cloud services governance provider, announced the availability of an upgraded closed-loop service governance automation solution, designed to help ensure that fine-grained development-time policy decisions are automatically applied to the enterprise's operating environment and enabling users to enforce development policies at runtime. Repository Manager Version 6.3 also integrates with SOA Software's Policy Manager.

Trend Micro Incorporated, an internet security vendor, announced its security software for 64-bit IBM Lotus Domino platforms now extends to the IBM System z platform. The ScanMail Suite delivers anti-spam, anti-malware, web threat protection and content filtering to prevent data theft and loss.

Investing in cloud computing - primarily private clouds - is a top priority for IT organizations for 2011, according to polls conducted by Unisys. A recent Unisys poll which was completed on January 24 found that 44% felt that 44% of the people responding expect to make cloud computing their top IT investment priority in 2011. By contrast, 24% named support for mobile/end user devices as their primary IT investment focus.

UNITE has published the registration fees for the upcoming conference May 22-25, 2011 at the Hyatt Regency Orange County Hotel in Anaheim, California.

Oracle has announced a new enterprise storage product, the StorageTek T10000C tape drive, which, the company says, provides high performance and low total cost of ownership at one-third to one-fifth the floor space of any tiered storage, archive or backup solution. "The new tape drive has the highest capacity and the highest throughput of anything out there by far," Tom Wultich, director of product management for Tape Storage at Oracle, tells 5 Minute Briefing.

Over the past 3 years, the IOUG ResearchWire studies conducted by Unisphere Research have focused on Oracle technology as well as trends affecting data professionals, allowing IT professionals to benchmark where their organizations stand within their own technology environment. Executive Summaries of all IOUG ResearchWire reports are publicly available for free download and full study reports are also available to IOUG members at no charge when they sign in with their user name and password.