Current Analysis, a major analyst house in the US, has given Red Brick Systems kudos for its February 11 release of Red Brick Warehouse 5.1. Stating that it is "positive" over the features to be found in Warehouse 5.1, Current Analysis says the release is of importance for the industry as a whole. Red Brick is represented in South Africa by Software Futures. Among the new features included in Red Brick Warehouse 5.1 are Red Brick Vista, a server-integrated solution for the computation and management of aggregates; and SQL-BackTrack for Red Brick Warehouse, a backup and recovery system designed specifically for Red Brick. "We are positive about Red Brick Warehouse 5.1 and the new features that it offers," says Current Analysis. " These include a new join algorithm and an improved optimiser, a GUI-based administration tool, and the bundling of administrative copy management and reporting features that were previously extra cost components. "Warehouse 5.1 also includes Red Brick Vista, an optional extra-cost component, for aggregate creation and management. Specific components include an aggregate advisor for determining how aggregations are performing and being used, an aggregate-aware query rewrite function that works with client tools and transparently rewrites queries to take advantage of aggregations, and metadata layer for mapping aggregations and their underlying tables. A new backup and recovery system, SQL-BackTrack for Red Brick - designed by BMC Software - is also available as an extra-cost component. "We believe that Warehouse 5.1 is a logical extension of Warehouse 5.0, first introduced in October 1996, and that it offers solid, evolutionary improvements to the base 5.0 release." Current Analysis adds: "We believe this is of moderate to high industry importance. Red Brick (founded by Dr. Ralph Kimball, the leading proponent of the star schema data model) has always been one of the industry`s technology innovators and has introduced many features (eg, STARjoins for optimising queries against star schemas) that improve data warehouse performance. "Red Brick was one of the first vendors to target and specialise in the data warehouse database market and has raised the bar for the other database players attempting to stake out a data warehouse database claim. With Warehouse 5.1, Red Brick continues this tradition and we believe the other database vendors will be closely analysing these new features to see their applicability to their own products." Financials Current Analysis points out that Red Brick Systems has returned to profitability. "On January 15 of this year, Red Brick reported that its Q4 97 earnings were positive after three prior quarters of losses. Red Brick, with 1997 revenues of $43 million, is by far the smallest of the major data warehouse database vendors (eg Informix, Oracle, NCR, and Sybase have total trailing 12-month revenues of $663, $6303, $6 589, and $904 million respectively). It must continue its string of innovations in order to successfully compete with the `big guys` and remain independent." Current perspective rating: Positive Current Analysis adds: "We are positive on the release of Red Brick Warehouse 5.1, as we believe it builds on the base release and adds additional and useful functionality - some of which are only available as an extra-cost option. "Red Brick has long been an innovator in data warehouse database technology and we believe Warehouse 5.1 continues its tradition, particularly with Red Brick Vista. This option used for the management of aggregations, incorporates query redirection capabilities that ensure existing client software will not have to be modified to take advantage of new aggregations. "We believe this release will certainly benefit Red Brick by allowing it to maintain its data warehouse focus and competitive edge. It will also benefit current users by providing them with additional capabilities including an optional high performance backup and recovery system. It should also benefit the data warehouse industry, as some of the features will undoubtedly find their way into competitive products." Top user actions: Current Analysis recommends: * Current users should start planning for the upgrade to Warehouse 5.1. They should also evaluate their current backup and recovery procedures to see if the new SQL-BackTrack for Red Brick should be bought. * Study your data warehouse environment to see if the aggregation features of Red Brick Vista could benefit your operations. If you are not already a Red Brick user and desire this feature, you may be able to negotiate a favorable price by acquiring Red Brick Vista and Red Brick Warehouse 5.1 as a package. * Red Brick`s Q4 results, combined with this new release of Warehouse, are positive signs that Red Brick may have turned the corner and prospects are encouraged to consider Red Brick in their data warehouse plans. We believe that even if Red Brick lapses back into financial difficulty, the worst-case scenario is likely to be that it will be acquired for its technology.
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