Informatica Perspectives

Ok, so I can't believe it either.  However, it's true - registration is now open for Informatica World 2009!   The premier industry data integration annual event, this will be our eleventh worldwide conference and we're delighted to be going to the MGM in Las Vegas next year. 

For a glimpse of what to expect take a look at our conference website.  We will be host an executive summit and partner event alongside the main conference.  You can expect to hear stories from our cusomters about how they are diving operational excellence across their organizations.  Of course all the well-known and successful activities will be there also - like Meet the Experts, Birds of a Feather and tons of peer and industry networking.

Everyone at Informatica looks forward to welcoming you to what is going to be an exciting and informative conference.

In my last post, I talked about the enterprise integration challenges that still challenge enterprises, even if they have moved processes to cloud computing or Software as a Service providers.

Will integration issues dampen the enthusiasm around cloud computing? What's the role of data environments in these new scenarios? To address these questions, I recently had the opportunity to speak with Chris Boorman, chief marketing officer with Informatica, and Ron Papas, senior vice president and general manager for Informatica On Demand, about the enterprise data management implications of this growing trend. (Chris also recently posted some of his observations here.) [Read more]

There's been no shortage of excitement about "cloud computing" - the idea that applications, databases and even entire data centers can be managed by someone else somewhere else, and be accessed online on an as-needed basis. Instead of maintaining complex software or systems that need constant maintenance and upgrades, a company could theoretically "rent" processing power, through the cloud, from service providers, only paying an incremental fee based on usage.

Major systems and applications vendors have announced cloud-computing initiatives, and leading analyst firm Gartner has named cloud computing - along with green IT and social-computing platforms - among technologies that are "poised to reach broad enterprise adoption in the next two to five years." Cloud computing is also known as Software as a Service and on-demand computing.

However, while cloud computing hands off many of the aches and pains associated with systems and application development and management to someone else, this does not relieve enterprises of the requirements and responsibilities around effectively managing enterprise data. Many observers, in fact, are concerned about the implications of cloud computing on enterprise data management and integration, since much of the processing and storage of information shifts to outside providers.

For example, cloud computing - which everyone suddenly seems to want - puts new strains on enterprises and vendors alike. A new study from Saugatuck Technology states that users want SaaS throughout the enterprise, whether their enterprises are ready for it or not, and whether vendors are ready to deliver it or not. The study, based on interviews with 400 executives and 30 SaaS solution provider and independent software vendors, finds that while users are increasingly demanding and expecting SaaS versions of everything from email to ERP, they often don't understand the technological and organizational resource constraints to enterprise-wide cloud computing.

And cloud computing does nothing to solve tricky data integration problems that companies may be wrestling with. Todd Biske, a practicing enterprise architect and former industry consultant, recently observed that cloud-based systems do not do the hard integration work - that's still up to the enterprise. He put it well when he pointed out "if an organization chooses Salesforce.com CRM on demand instead of SAP or Oracle CRM deployed within their firewall, does anything really change? Yes, there's no doubt that there are potential benefits as far as getting CRM up and running goes, but then what? In the enterprises I've worked with, the bulk of the projects were not about implementing some new vendor package. Some of that was always occurring, but there was plenty more that was about integration, enhancements, and other development activities."

Will these integration issues dampen the enthusiasm around cloud computing? In my next post 'Cloud Computing' is Ready for Enterprise Prime Time, But… (Part 2), I talk to Informatica's Chris Boorman and Ron Papas about how enterprises should handle integration issues.

The Wall Street Journal ran an interesting article last week entitled "SAP, Oracle Boost Software Prices" The conclusion, as summarized nicely by Forrester’s Ray Wang is that consolidation has resulted in less competition between the big vendors. This in turn can have a significant negative effect on customers …

Less competition means these large consolidators have much more control over your data and can pretty much do whatever they want  - for instance as it relates to maintenance pricing.  So if I am a buyer and looking at their solutions (largely obtained through acquisitions), should I believe that they are magically going to have the same pricing now that they are part of SAP or Oracle? [Read more]

It's been rumored for a while, but now it is official - Microsoft has announced an agreement to buy a data quality startup company, Zoomix, for the purpose of enhancing SQL Server.

Microsoft plans to add Zoomix's technology to future releases of its SQL Server database, the company said through its public relations firm. Zoomix said its development team will join the SQL Server team at Microsoft's research and development center in Israel.

While this is not a large transaction for Microsoft, the move does underscore the importance of Data Quality. However, this raises an interesting question. Who should you trust to deliver data quality? The people who brought you Vista? the folks who sold you SAP? At first glance, it seems quite convenient to be able to deal with data quality issues in conjunction with specific source systems. However, many IT experts would claim this approach is merely a stop-gap measure. Data must be managed apart from its host systems. Data Quality rules start to truly add value to the business when they span MS SQL Server, and SAP, and Oracle, and etc. etc. It's still a topic of debate. But the discussion has moved beyond the question of "is data quality software useful?" to "where is the most useful place to deliver data quality software?"

Feel free to post your opinions!

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This Wednesday, June 25, I have the privilege of hosting a Webinar featuring Ash Parikh, Informatica’s Principal Product Marketing Manager and a well-known author and speaker on enterprise data integration issues. Ash will be joined by David J. Ramos, Director of Business Intelligence and Analytics at LinkShare, an Informatica customer that provides online marketing services.

The Webinar, entitled Data Services - Maximizing Business Value Through Right-Time Information, is sponsored by Informatica and will be available live via ebizQ at 12:00 pm Eastern Time.

UPDATE: Archived replays of the Webcast are now available on demand.

Ash Parikh will discuss why many of the current approaches to integration - such as enterprise application integration (EAI), enterprise information integration (EII), and many manual processes still in use – are not giving organizations the agility they need to move to truly real-time, customer-focused enterprises. He will discuss an emerging approach - called data services - that creates a data abstraction layer that opens up all these formerly unreachable data stores across the organization.

David Ramos will explain how LinkShare, which handles 40 GBs of data across 300 million transactions a day, is employing Informatica technology to deliver grid-based data integration and meet the growing real-time data demands of its customers.

This promises to be a very informative and engaging session. Again, the live presentation will take place this Wednesday, June 25, at Noon Eastern Time.

Archived, on demand replay available here.

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Welcome to the Informatica Perspectives blog!

We've created this space as a forum for dialogue on the topics that are driving change across our customer base and throughout the software industry.  Check back often (or better yet, subscribe to the RSS feed) so you can be a part of the discussion on data integration, data quality, cloud computing, on-demand services and more.

Thanks for joining us!

I’m already making my flight arrangements for the 10th Annual Informatica World Conference in Las Vegas this year. [Read more]

What impact does a sound data quality strategy have on the business? In this recently recorded interview, Informatica’s Chief Marketing Officer, Brian Gentile shares first hand experience about how data quality solutions can increase revenue through more accurate identification and targeting of prospects, as well as higher customer satisfaction and retention. Brian discusses how an organization that proactively manages its data quality can generate significant saving and lower operating costs with the removal of redundant customer data.

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Have you ever wondered what impact a unified data management solution has on your ability to deliver value to your organization? In a recent interview, Informatica’s Chief Financial Officer Earl Fry discusses how to extract the highest value from your investments in Data Quality and Data Governance and how traditional ways of just buying different applications cannot cut it anymore.

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