Ascential Software has concluded a mainframe connectivity reseller agreement with IBM Software Group which will help protect the investment customers have made in middleware solutions from IBM. It will do so by guaranteeing interoperability with clients` existing infrastructure.
The agreement, which provides new joint selling opportunities with IBM, sees Ascential, represented in SA by Centerfield Software, reselling IBM`s DB2 Information Integrator for z/OS. This is done in conjunction with Ascential Enterprise Integration Suite to customers requiring mainframe connectivity.
"The new offering complements Ascential`s strong mainframe capabilities," says Julian Field, MD of Centerfield Software, "and it extends the strategic relationship between the company and IBM, presenting increased joint selling opportunities with the IBM Software Group."
The Ascential product offers connectivity with:
* IBM DB2 Universal Database;
* IBM IMS, the company`s premier transactional and hierarchical database management system for online operational and e-business applications and data;
* Virtual Storage Access Method (VSAM), one of the methods used to process data;
* Sequential flat files, Computer Associates IDMS, its mainframe database management system;
* Computer Associates Datacom; and
* Software AG ADABAS.
This gives a performance advantage over IBM mainframe adapters from non-IBM sources, including:
* Built-in recovery capability for better data accessibility, reliability and help in reducing deployment costs;
* Federated mainframe query to join information from multiple, heterogeneous data sources;
* Read and write capabilities for the IBM mainframe, eliminating the need to manually build and maintain code; and
* Interoperability with existing infrastructure, protecting customers` investment in IBM WebSphere MQ
Forrester Research Information Design research group principal analyst Philip Russom says massive back-end connectivity is a requirement for an enterprise data integration solution.
"As more of the enterprise is addressed, the list of data sources and targets grows. An enterprise-scale data integration suite should be able to access all major brands of relational and legacy databases, including those on a mainframe. Ascential`s reseller agreement with IBM supports this architecture," he says.
The Ascential Enterprise Integration Suite is a comprehensive data integration solution that profiles, cleanses and transforms data from virtually any application or system regardless of data volume or latency. Ascential`s integrated offering is designed to help companies streamline operations, improve customer support, expedite business transactions, and make better tactical and strategic decisions on the basis of the best available information. The suite provides unlimited scalability through parallel processing, complete metadata management, any-to-any data source and application connectivity, and delivers on-demand data integration seamlessly in a service-oriented architecture.
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Centerfield Software enables customers to take advantage of all their corporate data in innovative ways. Its integrated, best-of-breed products for data profiling, quality and transformation are built on a core platform of services that deliver unlimited enterprise data integration. Centerfield distributes and maintains software solutions from internationally recognised companies such as Ascential Software. Centerfield is based in Johannesburg and services more than 50 southern African customers in such industries as financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, manufacturing, consumer goods and retail. More information on Centerfield can be found on the Web at http://www.Centerfieldsoftware.co.za/.
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