Data Integration

Enabling Your BI Strategy

by Jorge A. Lopez on February 15, 2012

“What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”… at least according to the popular tourism campaign. Pardon me for breaking this rule, but I believe an exception is in order when it is the TDWI World Conference that brings you to the Entertainment Capital of the World.

As seems to be the case at every TDWI event, I’m finding a vibrant, exciting blend of IT professionals eager to share and learn about the latest industry trends. However, what has really caught my attention this time around is the increasing level of awareness and interest in data integration.

There is no doubt in my mind that “Big Data” and mobile devices have been instrumental in catapulting business intelligence (BI) to the forefront. Information that was once reserved for a few business analysts and techies has become readily available and open to the entire organization via simple, easy-to-use mobile interfaces. This “democratization” of BI is demanding more information than ever before, and creating a significant need for faster, simpler, and more agile data integration solutions.

This is exactly what I’m hearing over and over again this week at the show. It seems like people are increasingly realizing that when all is said and done, data integration is the core that makes data available to the organization. Mobility has allowed BI tools to deliver on user demands for agile, self-service BI. Therefore, organizations have a greater need than ever before for fast, easy ETL development to minimize “time to BI.” This requires a level of performance and scalability capable of delivering all of the data that users are demanding. Interestingly enough, this was one of the common themes I heard during my visit to MicroStrategy World last month.

I had the opportunity earlier this week to speak with Shawn Rogers, an industry analyst and research vice president at Enterprise Management Associates. Syncsort has worked closely with Shawn for some time, and he made a great point about the role of data integration as an “enabler.” I could not agree more with Shawn, and it seems as though more and more IT professionals are coming around to this way of thinking too. In fact, we have seen more and more organizations turning to Syncsort to enable and accelerate BI initiatives.

Are you seeing this too? Is your data integration tool enabling your BI strategy?

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Big Data Q&A with ESG’s Julie Lockner

by Keith Kohl on February 3, 2012

It has been a great week at Syncsort’s 2012 Global Sales Kickoff in Newport Beach, CA. As you might expect, there has been a lot of discussion about Big Data, Hadoop, ETL, data analytics, business intelligence, and more.

In addition to some great networking with colleagues from around the world, we have been fortunate to have several of our partners join us. During the event, we also announced the winners of our Partner of the Year Awards program.

However, the presentation that had everyone excited and talking was from Enterprise Strategy Group’s Julie Lockner. We’ve interacted regularly with Julie since she joined the ESG team a little more than a year ago, and find her to be really in touch with the end user community and the challenges they face. I had the chance to chat with Julie for a bit after her presentation and wanted to share a portion of the conversation. Thanks again to Julie for participating in our event!

KK: When you speak with end users, what do they tell you about the challenges they face with data integration?

JL: What is interesting is that everyone I speak with regarding data integration state that they have challenges. Aside from the common challenges associated data quality and data consistency, most talk how the development team has challenges responding to new requirements in a timely fashion.  More data, shorter windows, and new applications to be integrated all contribute to the challenges.

KK: What do you see organizations doing to overcome data integration challenges?

JL: Unfortunately, according to recent ESG research, many are still investing in more hardware and software to address the performance challenges. What is interesting, however, is more than 1/5th of the research respondents are using technology classified as data integration accelerators to complement their ETL strategies.

KK: Are you hearing more about data integration accelerators?

JL: As I mentioned in your previous question, this is absolutely becoming a viable option.  Data integration accelerators can play an important role in data transformations – especially when you consider that 80% of the tasks involve simple to complex data flows with sorts being a large part of what consumes hardware and compute resources.  Organizations I speak with that are using solutions such as DMExpress love the fact that it is fairly straightforward to implement and with little effort. They see significant performance improvements in their ETL jobs.  

KK: What are you seeing in terms of Hadoop and the profiles of early adopters?

JL: Hadoop has a lot of promise. There is a lot of excitement because it is new and with that comes hype.  What I am seeing, and what is being confirmed by ESG research, is that many are still trying to figure out how to leverage Hadoop in their environment.  This year seems to be the year of experimentation with Hadoop.  Those that are using Hadoop had an obvious need for something like Hadoop to deal with a seriously big data challenge – and Hadoop made economical sense.  The time and effort associated with coming up to speed with Hadoop and deploying a dedicated compute cluster needs to be vetted out in a business case before taking the plunge. In the meantime, I like the idea that there are a lot of “skunks work” projects out there. This will give the technical team a head start when the business case arrives at their door.

KK: Syncsort is based in New Jersey (home of the New York Giants), but has a number of employees (like myself) that either live in New England or have roots there. Do you want to go on the record with your Super Bowl prediction?

JL: I would love to see the New England Patriots win the Super Bowl this year.  With these two great teams going head to head, it will be a great game.

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Congratulations to the Syncsort Partner of the Year Award Winners

by Josh Rogers on February 1, 2012

Today, we announced some very exciting news recognizing our partners for their commitment to Syncsort’s solutions. The program is a testament to the important role partners play in Syncsort’s go-to-market strategy. Across both our data integration and data protection businesses, we continue to expand our partner ecosystem and forge deep relationships as we navigate the increasingly diverse and competitive industry landscape.

The past year has brought a lot of attention to the industries we serve. The data integration business saw discussions around the opportunities Big Data represents for companies and how Hadoop and the evolution of ETL tools, or ETL 2.0 as we call it, make capitalizing on these opportunities a reality. In the data protection world, snapshot technology came to the forefront and organizations of all sizes faced increased pressure from the C-suite to modernize backup and implement more robust disaster recovery plans. This has certainly been a positive for solutions like NSB, our integrated data protection offering with our partners at NetApp.

Across the board, our partners demonstrated a tremendous commitment to serving customers and using Syncsort technology to create cost-effective solutions that address some of the most complex IT challenges that exist today. Our partners also showed great enthusiasm for the new Syncsort certification and training programs that we rolled out throughout the year. While we appreciate the many contributions made by all of our partners, the award winners really stood out across multiple dimensions. They include:

Data Integration

 Data Protection

We’ve had a tremendous response from all of the award winners and couldn’t be more enthusiastic about working closely with each of them in the year ahead.  We appreciate their hard work and it’s been fantastic for partners to make statements like:

“Our strategic relationship with Syncsort enables us both to offer clients unique solutions that address the most complex data integration challenges at a fraction of the time and cost. We appreciate the recognition as Syncsort’s GSI Partner of the Year, and look forward to building on our work and success together in the marketplace in the year ahead.” – Hal Lavender, Chief Architect and AVP, Cognizant

“Our partnership with Syncsort provides significant benefits to organizations, such as Singapore Exchange, looking for effective ways to reduce IT operating expenses and enhance flexibility through mainframe migration to better prepare for future growth. By collaborating with Syncsort and utilizing their powerful data integration and sorting technology, we can bring greater value to enterprises with large datasets and batch requirements.” – Cameron Jenkins, COO, Clerity

“Syncsort data protection solutions and their partnership have been a key piece of SwishData’s success since our founding in 2006.  As virtualization continues to disrupt various data center strategies, Syncsort products not only provide our customers and partners with an integrated, simple way to protect data, but also enable them to return to production operation time by recovering applications in minutes instead of the hours commonly required with other products. Fundamentally, SwishData adds value to our customers and Syncsort solutions enhance our ability to do just that.” - Bob Kerr, Vice President, SwishData Corporation

Congratulations again to this year’s winners!

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Live at MicroStrategy World: Where Business Intelligence Meets Data Integration

by Jorge A. Lopez on January 25, 2012

Each January for the last 8 years, I have had the opportunity to escape the cold winter weather of the Northeast to visit warmer places like Las Vegas and Miami (where I currently am!) to catch up on the latest BI trends at MicroStrategy World. (Full disclosure, I’m an ex-MicroStrategist).

With more than 2,000 attendees, I can honestly say this year has been one of the most exciting, energizing events I’ve attended in a long time. IT professionals from all around the world are thrilled about the seemingly endless possibilities that market disrupting forces like Big Data, cloud, social media and mobile technologies are producing. When all is said and done, these things will have made a profound impact on the way we do business as well as the way we live, communicate and interact with our world. In fact, they already have!

During my many conversations with BI professionals here at MicroStrategy World and elsewhere, they often cite a fundamental challenge that is preventing them from fully realizing the benefits of their BI applications. That challenge is how to build a strong data integration infrastructure that enables IT to capitalize on the opportunities of Big Data. This is exactly where BI meets DI.

It is clear to me that a solid data integration infrastructure not only accelerates BI initiatives, but also helps maximize the benefits by making more data, that is accurate and relevant, available in much less time. However, this is a story that is much more powerful when told by one of our customers. For those of you in Miami at MicroStrategy World, don’t miss the chance on Thursday, Jan. 26 at 11:30 a.m. to hear directly from a leader in the healthcare industry. Part of the Big Data track, the presentation will be held at the Intercontinental Miami and will focus on using Syncsort’s DMExpress to reduce the cost and complexity of ETL for better, faster BI.

For the lucky ones in Miami, see you there! For everyone else, please feel free to leave a comment. I’m interested in your thoughts and experiences.

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The Proof is in the Pudding

January 24, 2012

The majority of technology sales, particularly in software, require some sort of proof of concept (POC) intended to prove out the product(s) based on a customer’s requirements. Syncsort is no stranger to POCs and we have a record of producing some really impressive results. Recently, we had the opportunity to present some of these results [...]

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The Relativity of Einstein, Elephants, Air Mattresses and ETL

January 12, 2012

According to Albert Einstein, the definition of insanity is repeating the same actions and expecting a different result. While I won’t go quite as far as to call it insanity, it has always bothered me that people keep tuning ETL tools that can’t handle larger data volumes. Over Christmas I had an experience which helped [...]

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The Importance of Being Ordered

January 3, 2012

Automobiles and ETL – what could they possibly have in common? What if I told you it was fuel injection. Remember the muscle cars of yesteryear? They got their power through bigger and bigger engines.  Back then, no one would have believed that a four cylinder car could be faster and more efficient. That was [...]

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Top 5 Data Integration Posts of 2011

December 21, 2011

The end of the year is around the corner and with that comes the urge to reflect on the events that helped define the past 12 months as well as the temptation to anticipate what’s ahead of us. However, as well-known American author and journalist Hal Borland once put it, “Year’s end is neither an [...]

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