Using a variety of data sources has been a daunting task for mere mortals.  Now, with the Data Explorer add-in for Excel, you don’t need to be a super hero to unlock data gems.  The Microsoft Data Explorer Preview for Excel is now available for download.

Here are the Top 5 Reasons to investigate this new add-in:

1. Discover the World’s Data
2. Connect to a wide variety of Data Sources
3. Combine data from multiple data sources
4. Reshape and transform your data effortlessly
5. Refresh your data anytime

Sound interesting?  Head on over to the Microsoft Business Intelligence blog post, “5 Things You Need to Know about Microsoft Data Explorer Preview for Excel” for more details and become a super hero in your organization!

Explore the functions of the Java Integration Stage (DataStage Connector) introduced in IBM InfoSphere Information Server version 9.1. This article addresses the Excel data source connectivity problem in older releases of IBM InfoSphere Information Server (7.5.x, 8.0.x, 8.1.x, 8.5.x, and 8.7.x) using Java Pack Plug-ins and the Java Pack API. The older releases of Information Server do not have a dedicated component for Excel connectivity. Third-party ODBC to ODBC bridges were used as an alternative, but they are licensed. The Java Pack Stages coupled with the Java Pack API and Apache POI API can be used to fetch Excel data into DataStage in a cost-effective way.

A description of the various features available within IBM Cognos Active Report and how they can be used to create and distribute interactive reporting applications.

NetFlow Analyzer embeds Vectorwise Analytic Database inside HighPerf Reporting Engine for Massive Streams of Data

Redwood City, Calif. – May 22, 2013 –Actian Corp. (“Actian”), a next-generation leader in big data management, today announced that ManageEngine has embedded Vectorwise analytic database to power its HighPerf Reporting Engine add-on for NetFlow Analyzer, one of the world’s most popular bandwidth and traffic analytics tools.

ManageEngine, the enterprise IT management software division of Zoho Corporation, is used by three out of every five Fortune 500 companies. The NetFlow Analyzer is an analytical tool that collects streaming data from thousands of network collection points or devices that are updated into a central storage analysis hub every few minutes. With Vectorwise as the embedded database, the HighPerf Reporting Engine can now capture, store and analyze six months of large amounts of raw, streaming network data – rather than relying on aggregated data – which accelerates report generation time and facilitates better bandwidth management, capacity planning, infrastructure decisions and resource optimization.

“Vectorwise allows NetFlow Analyzer to store and analyze massive amounts of raw data for much longer periods of time and still get answers instantly,” said Rajkumar Vijayarangakannan, Product Manager at ManageEngine. “ManageEngine can now more effectively isolate and contain threats like worms and virus attacks, monitor bandwidth consumption and plan for peaks, enabling top global companies to effectively plan and provision bandwidth for critical network applications. With Vectorwise’s powerful query engine, network issues can be solved much faster – keeping businesses running and profitable. And, because it works on commodity hardware for both Windows and Linux, our clients can store more data within their existing infrastructure and save disk space, money and time.”

“Thousands of the world’s biggest companies, including Actian, use ManageEngine’s NetFlow Analyzer. With Vectorwise as the foundation for the HighPerf Reporting Engine, organizations can monitor and manage their network bandwidth performance more quickly and accurately,” said Fred Gallagher, GM of Vectorwise at Actian. “Network traffic data volumes continue to increase exponentially. Our clients need the ability to store and analyze ever-expanding amounts of raw data for longer periods of time in order improve accuracy of traffic analytics,” continued Vijayarangakannan.

Vivek Bhatnagar, Indian Country Manager for Actian added, “NetFlow Analyzer has always been a fantastic tool for getting real-time insight on masses of continuously streaming network data. Now with Vectorwise, IT administrators can drill deeper into the root cause of network sluggishness, report on larger timeframes through raw data and provide better insights to network traffic patterns.”

ManageEngine’s HighPerf Reporting Engine is available today as both a single bundle and separate installation. A 30-day trial can be downloaded at http://www.manageengine.com/products/netflow/highperf-reporting-engine-intro.html.

About Actian: Take Action on Big Data
Actian Corporation enables organizations to transform big data into business value with data management solutions to transact, connect, analyze and act on data. Actian helps 10,000+ customers worldwide take action on their big data with Vectorwise analytics database, RushAnalytics Hadoop accelerator, DataCloud platform for cloud and on-premises data integration, Action Apps lightweight, consumer-style applications that automate business actions, as well as Ingres, Versant and PSQL transactional mission-critical databases. Actian is headquartered in California with offices in Austin, New York, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, New Delhi and Melbourne. Stay connected with Actian Corporation on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

About ManageEngine: The Real-Time IT Management Company
ManageEngine delivers the real-time IT management tools that empower an IT team to meet an organization’s need for real-time services and support. Worldwide, more than 72,000 established and emerging enterprises - including more than 60 percent of the Fortune 500 — rely on ManageEngine products to ensure the optimal performance of their critical IT infrastructure, including networks, servers, applications, desktops and more. ManageEngine is a division of Zoho Corp. with offices worldwide, including the United States, India, Japan and China. For more information, please visit http://www.manageengine.com/; follow the company blog at http://blogs.manageengine.com/, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ManageEngine and on Twitter at @ManageEngine.

The MicroOLAP team is proud to introduce Database Designer for PostgreSQL v1.9.0, an comprehensive CASE tool with intuitive graphical interface allowing you to

• build a clear and effective database structure visually,
• see the complete picture (diagram) representing all the tables, references between them, views, stored procedures and other objects,
• easily generate a physical database on a server,
• modify it according to any changes you made to the diagram using fast ALTER statements,
• import already existing diagram from a server,
• export diagram to common graphic formats or as SQL script,
• create detailed printings and reports.

This release introduces internal and architectural improvements. New compiler used as well as new exception tracer implemented. Download

You're welcome to download the Database Designer for PostgreSQL 1.9.0 right now at: http://microolap.com/products/database/postgresql-designer/download/

Feedback

Please don't hesitate to ask any questions or report bugs with our Support Ticketing system available at http://www.microolap.com/support/

Full changelog:

• [!] New compiler used in development
• [!] New exception tracer tool used
• [-] "Designer doesn't restore itself to maximized state after restart" bug fixed
• [-] "Modify Database ignores output script character case option" bug fixed
• [-] "Reverse Engineering warns that diagram is not empty even though it clearly is" bug fixed

Today Hortonworks announced the general availability of Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) for Windows, the industry’s first 100 percent Open Source Apache Hadoop-based distribution for Windows. The beta version of HDP for Windows was released two months ago at the Strata Conference in Santa Clara Hortonworks and was well received by industry press.

This is a very exciting release as it marks an important milestone in our partnership with Hortonworks and our overall big data approach. We are deeply invested in ensuring customers have choice and interoperability when building and running Hadoop-based solutions -- HDP for Windows is a direct result of the joint engineering partnership between our two companies and today’s release helps to accelerate the adoption of Hadoop in the enterprise by diversifying the number of platforms that it can run on. With HDP for Windows customers can deploy Hadoop today on Windows Server in their own data centers.

HDP for Windows offers customers a 100 percent Open Source Apache Hadoop distribution that is Enterprise-ready and interoperable across Linux, Windows Server and Windows Azure. For more details visit the Hortonworks website.

In addition, HDP for Windows offers easy migration to HDInsight: Customers can migrate seamlessly from HDP for Windows to Windows Azure HDInsight Service to take advantage of the elasticity and low cost of Hadoop in the cloud.

Download HDP for Windows today from Hortonworks and start testing. Visit the Windows Azure website for more information on Windows Azure HDInsight Service.

Storing massive amounts of data is great until you need to do something with it. No incredible discoveries or futuristic predictions come from unused data, no matter how much of it you store. Big data can be a complicated beast. Writing complex MapReduce programs in the Java programming language takes time, good resources, and know-how that most organizations don't have available. This is where building a data library using a tool like Hive on top of Hadoop becomes a powerful solution.

Hortonworks Alliance and Support for HCatalog Power Advanced Analytics on Hadoop Data

Redwood City, Calif. – May 20, 2013 – Organizations are encountering significant challenges running advanced analytics on big data stored in Apache Hadoop. To address this need, Actian today announced general availability of its Hadoop On Demand Integration module v2.0 for ParAccel, including support for HCatalog, the centralized metadata repository supported in several distributions of Hadoop, notably Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP).

ParAccel’s enhanced On Demand Integration module establishes parallel, bi-directional connections between the ParAccel Analytic Platform and Hadoop, allowing analysts to access Hadoop data at query time without an additional integration process or tool. Now organizations can leverage existing SQL skill sets and business intelligence tools on Hadoop data using the full spectrum of SQL functions. With a single SQL query, any analyst can run high-performance, advanced analytics across data in Hadoop and other corporate data sources.

This release also marks a milestone in an established alliance between the ParAccel team and Hortonworks, the only 100 percent open source data management platform for Apache Hadoop.

“Together, Hortonworks Data Platform and ParAccel Analytic Platform offer an integrated big data management and analytics solution that is cost-effective and quickly returns value for our shared customers,” said Mitch Ferguson, vice president of business development at Hortonworks. “With ParAccel’s support for HCatalog, companies can effectively target specific Hadoop data for analysis, running any SQL query and getting results in record time.”

Hadoop is often used to process and store large amounts of incoming data, particularly “semi-structured” and unstructured data such as weblogs or machine sensor data. To make analysis in Hadoop less complex, analysts can write a SQL query to ParAccel Analytic Platform, which accesses Hadoop data via the On-Demand Integration module and moves it into ParAccel for analysis. Parallel connections and optional HCatalog support enable the most efficient data movement between Hadoop and ParAccel, filtering and moving only the subset of data needed for a particular analysis right at query time, without a secondary process or tool. The ParAccel Hadoop On Demand Integration module gives analysts inline SQL access to big data to run advanced analytic functions, such as predictive analytics, market basket functions, pattern matching and social-aware text analytics.

“The integrated ParAccel-Hortonworks solution enables our mutual customers to unlock value from big data faster by making it easy and accessible to run SQL on data stored in Hadoop or other data sources. The combination brings together two extremely cost-effective platforms to maximize big data ROI,” said Rich Ghiossi, vice president of marketing for ParAccel.

Technology leaders from the companies will further discuss the combined solution in a webinar and live demo on May 21, 2013 10 a.m. PDT.

ParAccel and Hortonworks already share several customers. The most common use case of the combined platforms has been an “operational data refinery” model, leveraging Hortonworks HDP for Hadoop, while using ParAccel for high-performance big data analytics.

The ParAccel Hadoop On Demand Integration module is generally available now. For pricing and additional information, please contact ParAccel.

About Actian: Take Action on Big Data
Actian Corporation enables organizations to transform big data into business value with data management solutions to transact, connect, analyze and act on data. Actian helps 10,000+ customers worldwide take action on their big data with Vectorwise analytics database, RushAnalytics Hadoop accelerator, DataCloud platform for cloud and on-premises data integration, Action Apps lightweight, consumer-style applications that automate business actions, as well as Ingres, Versant and PSQL transactional mission-critical databases. Actian is headquartered in California with offices in Austin, New York, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, New Delhi and Melbourne. Stay connected with Actian Corporation on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

About ParAccel
To gain a competitive advantage in a fast-paced, data-driven world, companies need immediate answers to any business question they decide to ask. As a leading analytic platform provider, ParAccel, which was recently acquired by Actian, delivers an environment for unconstrained analytics and opens the door for companies to accelerate, innovate and compete. ParAccel Analytic Platform combines an analytic database with extensibility and integration technology as a foundation for running big data analytics, anytime, anywhere. ParAccel’s Fortune 1000 customers, in digital media, retail, financial services, healthcare and government, are testing the bounds of unconstrained analytics with this powerful, interactive analytic platform. For more information please contact us at info@paraccel.com or 866-903-0335.

Actian, Action Apps, Ingres, RushAnalytics, ParAccel, Vectorwise and Versant are trademarks of Actian Corporation and its subsidiaries. All other trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.

Continuing our discussion on how to leverage the capabilities of PowerShell to automate the most basic SSIS management tasks, this article will explore more complex topics by demonstrating the use of PowerShell in implementing and utilizing project environments.

With the continuous growth of processing power and the increasing number of processor cores in servers, virtualization has become very attractive for many companies. As more and more IBM InfoSphere Information Server customers begin to adopt virtualization technology, understanding the performance characteristics of InfoSphere Information Server running in virtualized environments has become critical.

Redwood City, Calif. – May 16, 2013 –Actian Corp. (“Actian”), a leader in next-generation big data management and creator of the analytic database Vectorwise, today announced that 3K Technologies, LLC has partnered with Actian to offer Actian Vectorwise technology to its business intelligence, visual and predictive analytics, business integration and cloud services customers. Now with access to the Vectorwise analytic database, 3K Technologies can harness extensive variations and massive amounts of data to help its customers make better high-stakes decisions faster.

Because Vectorwise technology delivers high performance on low-cost, commodity hardware, 3K Technologies can offer its customers access to large-scale real-time data at a fraction of the cost of other leading solutions. Now, 3K Technologies clients can connect to, analyze and take action based on real-time data to improve business decisions.

“3K Technologies has worked with companies that are leaders in their markets to leverage business data to sustain and grow their competitive advantage,” said Fred Gallagher, GM of Vectorwise, Actian. “By joining forces with Vectorwise, 3K Technologies customers can gain real-time insights from their data take automated action, without breaking the bank.”

“By adding Actian Vectorwise to our portfolio of technologies, our customers can gain maximum value from their massive amounts of data,” said Krishna K Chittabathini, co-founder and CEO, 3K Technologies.

With more than 10,000 customers worldwide, Actian is a leader in helping companies analyze big data in industries ranging from retail, ecommerce, healthcare, manufacturing, finance and social media.

About Actian: Take Action on Big Data
Actian Corporation enables organizations to transform big data into business value with data management solutions to transact, connect, analyze and act on data. Actian helps 10,000+ customers worldwide take action on their big data with Vectorwise analytics database, RushAnalytics Hadoop accelerator, DataCloud platform for cloud and on-premises data integration, Action Apps lightweight, consumer-style applications that automate business actions, as well as Ingres, Versant and PSQL transactional mission-critical databases. Actian is headquartered in California with offices in Austin, New York, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, New Delhi and Melbourne. Stay connected with Actian Corporation on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

About 3K Technologies
3K Technologies, LLC is an INC 500 company, and is listed as one of the fastest growing private companies in the United States of America. 3K Technologies customers are the world's best-known Fortune 500 and Global 1000 brands, spanning a variety of industries -- high tech manufacturing, social media, e-commerce, financial services, logistics, entertainment, pharmaceutical and consumer packaged goods.

Founded in 2002, 3K Technologies helps enterprises to solve business challenges while focusing on the development and implementation of technology: Business Intelligence, Visual & Predictive Analytics, Big Data, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Software Product Engineering and Cloud. More information about the company is available at www.3ktechnologies.com.

Actian, Action Apps, Ingres, RushAnalytics, Vectorwise and Versant are trademarks of Actian Corporation and its subsidiaries. All other trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.

The 3rd Annual Future of Cloud Computing Survey has just been launched by North Bridge and GigaOM Research.

We are participating in this survey because your feedback on cloud computing is important to us and the industry.  We want to hear about your plans for cloud implementation, where the cloud is making an impact across your software eco-system, what critical issues you might be facing around IT and business, drivers and inhibitors to cloud adoption, etc. 

We invite you to be among the first to TAKE THE SURVEY and share it with your network.  By doing so you will help shape the industry view of cloud computing and identify emerging trends.  Results of the survey will be announced at the GigaOM Structure in June and we will be back at that time to discuss the findings.

Learn more about the Cloud OS – Microsoft’s vision for the new era, a consistent, modern platform for the world’s apps.

Articles and advice on Big Data hardware and software solutions abound. The most popular topic is the role to be played by new analytics solutions such as analytical appliances, NoSQL database management systems (DBMSs) and Apache Hadoop software. How can the IT enterprise plan such implementations? What are the first steps?

Increasingly, customers must keep their applications online and available all hours of every day, 24X7. Fortunately, the DB2 migration process has been designed specifically to allow the business application set to continue to run while you migrate. This article provides hints and tips to make your online migration successful.

IBM InfoSphere Data Replication allows the synchronization of data between two or more database management systems either on the same or on different operational platforms. Many different usage scenarios exist. Starting in Version 10.1 of IBM InfoSphere Data Replication, replication is now supported at the schema level. This means that defined changes to the database structure such as the creation of new tables are automatically added to the replication system without any need for administration or intervention. This not only eliminates or greatly reduces the administrative efforts when tables are added or changed at the primary database but also significantly increases the reliability of the replication system, especially when used as a synchronization mechanism for an active disaster recovery site. This article is the first in a series that uses a disaster recovery use case to explain how to set up schema-level subscriptions for uni-directional replication topologies available in the Q Replication technology that comes with IBM InfoSphere Data Replication v10.1.3 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows. We encourage you to replay the scenario. To make this as convenient as possible, various scripts are provided in the Download section of this article. Watch out for more articles in this series that cover schema-level subscriptions for bi-directional topologies and more.

This important release introduces support for the RAD Studio XE4 (Delphi and C++ Builder personalities). Download

You're welcome to download the PostgresDAC v2.9.6 right now at: http://microolap.com/products/connectivity/postgresdac/download/ or login to your private area on our site at http://microolap.com/my/downloads/

Feedback

Please don't hesitate to ask any questions or report bugs with our Support Ticketing system available at http://www.microolap.com/support/

High performance analytic database to tackle mounting data volumes in real-time

London, UK, 15 May 2013 –Actian Corp. (“Actian”), a next-generation leader in big data management, today announced that they have signed a reseller agreement with Halpenfield, a specialist business intelligence practice in the U.K.

Under the agreement, Halpenfield will provide Actian Vectorwise, the superfast analytic database as part of business intelligence solutions it delivers to its customers in retail, leisure and travel industries. Seeking a high performance analytic database capable of providing turbo-charged business intelligence, Halpenfield decided to partner with Actian because of Vectorwise’s stellar performance, plug and play feature and compatibility with front end BI applications.

“In today’s highly competitive business environment, access to real-time or near real-time analysis is the key to tackling expanding data volumes. With most data residing in data marts, real-time analysis is hindered by data transformation, a process that converts data from an organization’s data warehouse into a format compatible with an analytic database,” said Andy Hopcraft, practice director at Halpenfield. “In order to realise the benefits of real-time analysis, organizations need to bypass the data transformation process which can be a bottleneck and delay access to fast business intelligence.”

“With Actian Vectorwise, businesses can take advantage of an amazingly quick analytic database that can also cope with raw data without the need to transform it. Performance, agility and most importantly compatibility with front end BI tools such as Tibco Spotfire and Tableau Software, which are offered as part of Halpenfield’s BI portfolio, makes Actian Vectorwise an ideal BI tool for us. In addition, Actian offers extensive support and technical expertise not only at the time of sale but also post-sale.”

“Real-time analysis is the key to deriving benefits from the growing data volumes. Actian Vectorwise, the record breaking analytic database provides rapid-fire analysis and it can be deployed behind a number of front end analytical applications making it the preferred business intelligence solution,” said Steve Crosson Smith, client director NEMEA at Actian Corporation. “We are delighted to welcome Halpenfield as our latest partner and we look forward to delivering supercharged business intelligence to its customers.”

About Actian: Take Action on Big Data
Actian Corporation enables organizations to transform big data into business value with data management solutions to Connect, Analyze, and take automated Action across their business operations. Actian’s innovative portfolio of solutions for big data include cloud integration for frictionless connection to any data; analytical solutions specifically engineered to handle the extreme speed and scale of data intensive computing; Action Apps for automated action on business events as they happen and managed B2B exchanges that automate business processes in select industries. Headquartered in Redwood City, Actian helps clients worldwide manage and understand their business operations through offices in Austin, New York, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Amsterdam and Melbourne. Stay connected with Actian Corporation on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Actian, Action Apps, Ingres and Vectorwise are trademarks of Actian Corporation. All other trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.

About Halpenfield
Halpenfield is a specialist Business Intelligence Practice that has business users in mind. The company’s solutions provide social & collaborative BI so that companies gain insight and make better decisions together. For more information, go to www.halpenfield.co.uk.

Learn how you can start creating, testing, deploying, and using custom text extractors to analyze social media data and other forms of text data using technologies available in IBM's big data platform.

Quickly identifying real time SQL performance issues has been one of the biggest headaches for Oracle DBAs. Oracle Database 11g introduces a new feature that dramatically simplifies the detection and analysis of long running queries. Learn how to see and work with the new feature using the Oracle Enterprise Manager.

This document is intended to provide a single point of reference for techniques and product behaviours when dealing with the Dynamic Query Mode delivered with IBM Cognos 10.