In response to growing demand for MultiValue data in the cloud, Pick Cloud, Inc. has been launched by Mark Pick. Pick Cloud aims to provide its clients with a safe, secure hosted environment that guarantees 99.999% uptime, automatic file-saves, backups, and 24x7 support. In addition, Pick Cloud offers database-as-a-service (DBaaS) as an option.

In response to growing demand for MultiValue data in the cloud, Pick Cloud, Inc. has been launched by Mark Pick. Pick Cloud aims to provide its clients with a safe, secure hosted environment that guarantees 99.999% uptime, automatic file-saves, backups, and 24x7 support. In addition, Pick Cloud offers database-as-a-service (DBaaS) as an option.

Application and server management solutions provider Idera has released version 5.0 of Idera Server Backup, designed to be an affordable, enterprise-class software solution for physical and virtual server environments. According to Idera, the solution is offered at a price point that is 80% lower on average than competing solutions, and provides a fast and proven solution for backup and recovery for mixed server environments, including physical, virtual, Windows, and Linux.

For a long time, data integration has been the holy grail for data organizations, promising a single, accurate picture of relevant data from across the enterprise, regardless of original source or format. Now, with the rise of new approaches — including master data management (MDM) and data virtualization, there is hope that this goal is within reach. But the challenges keep on coming, and lately, there has been a surge in unstructured data that may fall outside MDM realms.

Australia-based Koorong Books has migrated its enterprise computer system to run on the InterSystems CACHÉ high-performance object database, enhancing its legacy system and improving its performance and integration. One of the most important characteristics of the next generation of applications is that they will utilize all of the data in the enterprise, Robert Nagle, vice president of Software Development, InterSystems, tells DBTA.

Australia-based Koorong Books has migrated its enterprise computer system to run on the InterSystems CACHÉ high-performance object database, enhancing its legacy system and improving its performance and integration. One of the most important characteristics of the next generation of applications is that they will utilize all of the data in the enterprise, Robert Nagle, vice president of Software Development, InterSystems, tells DBTA.

Lectures related to master data bring forth all sorts of taxonomies intended to help clarify master data and its place within an organization. Sliding scales may be presented: at the top, not master data; at the bottom, very much master data; in the middle, increasing degrees of "master data-ness." For the longest of times everyone thought metadata was confusing enough ... oops, we've done it again. And, we have accomplished the establishment of this master data semantic monster in quite a grand fashion.

Lectures related to master data bring forth all sorts of taxonomies intended to help clarify master data and its place within an organization. Sliding scales may be presented: at the top, not master data; at the bottom, very much master data; in the middle, increasing degrees of "master data-ness." For the longest of times everyone thought metadata was confusing enough ... oops, we've done it again. And, we have accomplished the establishment of this master data semantic monster in quite a grand fashion.

In this, our last E-Edition of Database Trends and Applications for 2011, we're taking a look back at some of the most widely read articles of the past year. These articles cover a range of topics. Some provide an examination of just-emerging or quickly evolving technologies, others highlight best practices in a specific discipline, while others comment on trends observed by industry experts. Click on the "December 2011 E-Edition UPDATE" headline above to access the articles. If you missed one earlier in the year, here's your second chance. All DBTA E-Editions are archived by month on the DBTA website.

Customer centricity has become a watchword for major corporations worldwide, but a recently released survey has revealed that many enterprises are lacking in the basic knowledge of who their customers are, not to mention their attributes, tastes, purchasing histories and relationships with other customers.

At IBM's 2011 Business Analytics Forum, IBM unveiled new software that brings the power of managing and analyzing big data to the workplace. The new offerings span a variety of big data and business analytics technologies across multiple platforms from mobile devices to the data center to IBM's SmartCloud, enabling employees from any department inside an organization to explore unstructured data such as Twitter feeds, Facebook posts, weather data, log files, genomic data and video, as part of their everyday work experience.

Quest International Users Group (Quest) for Oracle PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and Oracle Utilities users is laying out an ambitious roadmap for the year ahead, incorporating new in-person product-focused events directed specifically at the needs of the JD Edwards and PeopleSoft communities, as well as expanding its offering of online learning opportunities. Michael L. Whitmer, president of Quest, joined by Jonathan Vaughn, Quest's executive director, talked with 5 Minute Briefing at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco about strategies for supporting members in 2012. There is a shift going on in IT and being technically competent is simply not enough anymore, says Whitmer. "The IT organizations that are going to be successful going forward are those that really move out of being the order-taker organization to being a true business strategy organization, in partnership with the business, and deliver IT in a way that provides business value."

Talend, an open source software provider, has announced an expansion of its "Powered by Talend" OEM Partner Program designed to help software vendors and SaaS providers embed its enterprise-grade open source integration technologies in their offerings. With the program, partners can leverage all components of the Talend Unified Platform, a set of data management and application integration technologies that Talend says can deliver core functionality at a fraction of the cost of custom development.

Revelation Software has announced the availability of the latest release of OpenInsight Development Suite (OI), version 9.2.1, which features OpenInsight for Web v.1.1. (O4W), a new version of the web 2.0 development toolkit that enables OpenInsight and MultiValue developers to rapidly create browser based forms, reports, menus, dashboards and programs.

The year 2010 brought many new challenges and opportunities to data managers' jobs everywhere. Companies, still recovering from a savage recession, increasingly turned to the power of analytics to turn data stores into actionable insights, and hopefully gain an edge over less data-savvy competitors. At the same time, data managers and administrators alike found themselves tasked with managing and maintaining the integrity of rapidly multiplying volumes of data, often presented in a dizzying array of formats and structures. New tools and approaches were sought; and the market churning with promising new offerings embracing virtualization, consolidation and information lifecycle management. Where will this lead in the year ahead? Can we expect an acceleration of these initiatives and more? DBTA looked at new industry research, and spoke with leading experts in the data management space, to identify the top trends for 2011.

Oracle has unveiled Oracle Tutor 14, the latest version of its process documentation tool. Oracle Tutor is a single, user-friendly repository for documenting and sharing business processes that streamlines training, facilitates information sharing and improves document consistency by enabling organizations to easily create, deploy and maintain enterprise policies and procedures.

Queplix Corp., a provider of data virtualization software, has announced that its new Virtual Data Viewer is available for free download. The new product aims to streamline preliminary steps to implementing any type of data migration, management, integration or similar data initiative.

If data is the lifeblood of an enterprise, a robust master data management (MDM) solution may well be the heart, pumping purified data downstream to vital applications and databases while simultaneously accepting inaccurate and old data for cleansing and enrichment. This "bloodstream," as we know it, is comprised of a myriad of different subject areas, and/or domains. Though the MDM market may well consider itself conceptually and technically mature, end users still struggle to determine whether they should embrace specialist MDM solutions dedicated to supporting one subject area, or make one strategic acquisition and implement truly-multi domain software that addresses multiple subject areas.

At InformaticaWorld last week, Informatica announced the general availability of the latest release of its master data management (MDM) product, Informatica 9 MDM.

Talend, a provider of open source data management software, announced an upgrade to its flagship data management platform that incorporates advanced data stewardship and data matching capabilities. The new release, Talend v4.1, automates data quality processes and supports master data management (MDM) methodologies.

The flood of digital information increases the need for accuracy - including knowing which data to leave out. Remember when we used to ride around in our cars and listen to AM radio? Maybe you're not quite old enough to remember, but there was a time when AM radio was all we had - and that was fine. There also used to be only a handful of television channels, which we had to get up out of our chairs to change. That was fine, too. We didn't long for a wider variety of music on the radio, or more channels to watch on TV. We had what we had, and it was all fine - it was all "good enough."

Organizations turn to master data management (MDM) to solve many business problems - to reach compliance goals, improve customer service, power more accurate business intelligence, and introduce new products efficiently. In many cases, the need for an MDM implementation is dictated by the business challenge at hand, which knows no single data domain. Take a manufacturing customer, for example. The company decided to deploy an MDM solution in order to solve buy-side and sell-side supply chain processes, to more effectively manage the procurement of direct and indirect materials and to improve the distribution of products. To meet these goals the solution must be capable of managing vendor, customer, material and product master data. Unfortunately, quite a few vendors sell technology solutions that focus exclusively on either customer data integration (CDI) or product information management (PIM), which solves only a piece of the business problem.

Oracle has announced the availability of Oracle Enterprise Content Management Suite 11g, a comprehensive, integrated and high-performance content management solution, aimed at helping organizations increase efficiency, reduce costs and improve content security. This is a major release of Oracle Enterprise Content Management Suite that aligns with the overall Fusion Middleware 11g release, Michelle Huff, director, Enterprise 2.0 product management, Oracle, tells 5 Minute Briefing. An important part of that approach, especially for Oracle customers, she points out, is the suite's integrations across the Oracle Fusion Middleware stack, from identity management to business process management, SOA Suite, and Enterprise Manager.

Oracle today announced the availability of Oracle Enterprise Content Management Suite 11g, a comprehensive, integrated and high-performance content management solution, aimed at helping organizations increase efficiency, reduce costs and improve content security.

HiT Software, a provider of provider of data integration and change data capture software products, has been acquired by BackOffice Associates, a provider of data migration, data governance and master data management solutions for Oracle, SAP and other ERP vendors.

EMC Corporation and Informatica Corporation have announced that Informatica Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) and Master Data Management (MDM) solutions have been added to EMC Select. Under this agreement, EMC will resell Informatica ILM and MDM products and services, to further extend the value of EMC's intelligent tiered storage, archive and enterprise content management platforms.

Informatica Corporation has announced new customer support offerings and proactive support capabilities as part of the Informatica Global Customer Support program. The additional services will be bundled into existing programs to further accelerate customer time-to-value, reducing cost-of-ownership and helping ensure ongoing project success.

As part of a strategy to help customers better understand, control and monetize their content, Open Text Corporation, a provider of enterprise content management (ECM) software, said it plans to integrate and expand the content analytics capabilities of Nstein Technologies in the Open Text ECM Suite. Open Text Corporation acquired Nstein Technologies April 1.

Talend, a provider of open source data management software, today announced the release of Talend 4.0. With this major upgrade to the company's flagship data management solutions, Talend is delivering an integrated data management platform that combines data integration, data quality and master data management (MDM) within a single solution, enabling Talend customers to further streamline and reduce the complexity of their critical data management projects.