ENGINEERING

Ascential Software Corporation today announced that the Ascential Enterprise Integration Suite has achieved level six validation for IBM Grid Architecture. Level six validation means that Ascential Software's suite was designed from inception for scalable execution that maximizes the performance of grid computing networks. Testing was conducted at the IBM Innovation Center for Business Partners using IBM eServers running RedHat Linux attached to IBM TotalStorage hardware, and included Platform Computing's Platform LSF for resource management, monitoring and control. Ascential Software is an IBM strategic alliance partner, and the two companies together have provided mutual customers with scalable data warehousing solutions running on IBM DB2 and IBM AIX-based hardware. “Grid computing is a clear force in the commercial enterprise. We have worked closely with our partner Ascential Software to engineer its enterprise data integration products for grid deployment to take advantage of this trend,” said Ken King, vice president, Grid Computing, IBM. “To achieve level six validation, Ascential Software demonstrated that the tightly coupled parallel architecture of the Ascential Enterprise Integration Suite, combined with IBM's cost-effective grid solutions, meets the needs of companies that want to process growing volumes of data without significantly increasing IT complexity and cost.” “Ascential Software is the first data integration software company to earn IBM Grid validation. The Ascential Enterprise Integration Suite was subjected to rigorous testing to enable high-performance on any IBM grid configuration,” said Mike Beckerle, chief scientist, Scalable Computing, Ascential Software Corporation. “This is fitting given that Ascential Software has a long and successful history of delivering infinitely scalable data integration solutions on the exceptional hardware from our partner, IBM.” The Platform LSF family of products from Platform Computing, a fellow IBM Grid Partner and a leader in grid computing software, was used to test the Ascential Enterprise Integration Suite during the IBM certification process. “Platform Computing is working with companies like IBM to help software innovators like Ascential Software build dynamic, virtualized applications that meet business service-level and cost-structure requirements,” said Ed Ryan, vice president, products, Platform Computing. “Together with Ascential Software, we can help enterprises of any size leverage our and IBM's grid computing solutions to overcome the immense complexities of turning data into business insight.” William Fellows, an analyst with The 451 Group, a technology industry analyst company focused on the business of enterprise IT innovation, called out in a recent report that “ the Ascential DataStage architecture itself has been integrated with grid technology at the meta data layer, and through its orchestration and execution engine it lends grid attributes to other Ascential products, including Ascential ProfileStage™ and Ascential QualityStage™.” He added, “Ascential Software has engaged with one of the primary commercial grid users, Acxiom. It has been around grid computing long enough and, based on field reports, has the customer pipeline to suggest its commitment to grid computing is strategic and long-term.” Fellows' observations are contained in an independent report titled, “Ascential to Start Hawking Grids,” published on October 15, 2004. Ascential Software provides enterprise data integration solutions and professional services that help its customers capture the advantages of grid computing. This includes a product and partnership strategy to deliver market leading innovations and professional services designed specifically for grid computing environments through major systems integrators, such as IBM Business Consulting Services. Ascential Software has established a Grid Center of Excellence within its Professional Consulting Center of Excellence to provide customers with solution and technical architecture services and expertise. Ascential Software is an active member of multiple industry organizations formed to advance the commercial adoption of grid computing and require that enterprise grid standards be established to help protect IT investments. These include the Global Grid Forum (GGF). “GGF is the community of users, developers and vendors leading the global standardization effort for grid computing worldwide,” said Mark Linesch, chairman of GGF. “Ascential Software was an early GGF member and the first data integration software provider to commit resources and effort to advancing our goals. We value their expertise, ongoing contributions and continued thought leadership.” 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 Software'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 meta data management and any-to-any data source and application connectivity, and delivers on-demand data integration seamlessly within an enterprise's service-oriented architecture.