What's Next - GoldenGate on Trial

Vol.27 Issue 38
September 23, 2005

Article URL: http://www.processor.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles%2Fp2738

GoldenGate on Trial

Database administrators are constantly plagued with the chore of having to synchronize the information in separate, continuously updated databases. One company, however, is offering a cure for the database plague. GoldenGate Software says its new product, Veridata (database error-checking software), compares large volumes of data in active databases. Several companies still tackle database synchronization via replication, where a designated master database would update secondary databases. Veridata, however, works like a watchdog. If conflicts are detected, the database administrator or system user knows right away. If the system goes down, the software looks for data that has fallen out of sync after the databases restart.

The error-checking software can investigate and compare two servers running Oracle databases or two HP NonStop databases for a fee of $90,000. GoldenGate plans to cover additional platforms (such as Microsoft's SQL Server and NCR's Teradata) by the end of this year. The Montefiore Medical Center in New York is undergoing a two-month trial using Veridata to watch for discrepancies in its HP NonStop databases. If the trial period finds success, the hospital will put Veridata into full production.

Open-Source Moves In With Integration

Three open-source initiatives are teaming up to provide an alternative to software-integration products from the likes of IBM, Tibco, and Oracle. If adopted, these open-source integration products could create major revenue opportunities for the three participating open-source companies, including ServiceMix, Apache Synapse, and Celtix. The end result of the three-player team is to create a more tenacious integration product and attract a higher number of software developers in the open-source field.

All three players combined bring separate solutions to the age-old problem of integration. ServiceMix develops server software, as does Celtix, but they also support a broad variety of communication protocols and languages, while Synapse processes XML documents that are sent between two applications. If all goes well, perhaps integration software will be to open source as databases and application servers have been.

Move Over SCSI

The landscape of DAS in the data center is about to change. The new SAS platform, which is based on the original SCSI protocol, is promising to increase storage connectivity, enhance reliability, and improve performance. On top of these benefits, SAS-based controllers will also support both SATA II and SAS drives concurrently in mixed storage environments. In terms of speed, the new SAS platform has the potential to move data as much as 30 times faster than today.s parallel connections. SAS controllers also have the potential to address up to 128 devices, compared to only 16 devices currently supported by parallel SCSI. First-tier server and storage vendors such as HP and IBM have already signed on and are announcing their own SAS-based products, as have other major HBA and drive manufacturers. On the downside of things, SAS enthusiasts should expect the loss of backward-compatibility with existing parallel SCSI devices.

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