February 23, 2010
ten tips for selecting a data integration tool
As the economy begins to recover and more organizations are looking to increase their IT investment - we thought it would be helpful to highlight the following 'ten tips for selecting a data integrtion tool,' which were first published by Dr. David Waddington in his white paper entitled, "Data Integration: Total Cost of Ownership Really Matters."
- Implement and enforce strong data governance across your organization so that the definitions, standards, ownership, location and history (audit trail) of key enterprise data is understood.
- Implement a data quality program as an integral part of your data governance. This is not a once-off initiative.
- Select data integration tools that fully support the governance organization and provide tracking, audit trail, alerts and other similar key performance parameters to allow effective management of the process.
- Start small and grow. Don't be tempted to undertake a data integration or migration project using a 'big bang' approach.
- Choose a data integration tool that is designed for purpose and avoid tools that are composed of multiple (bolted together) and not necessarily well-integrated components or modules.
- Select tools that support a strong business-oriented focus for data integration. Many of today's tools are complex, sophisticated and difficult to learn, requiring specialists.
- Select a tool that will offer the scalability needed to encompass your future business needs.
- Seek vendors that can offer role-based implementation where (as described above) tasks currently undertaken by developers can be shared more effectively among your current experienced business staff.
- Steer clear of products that require you to hard code or embed business logic into the internals of the tool.
- Remember that total cost of ownership is what really matters. Not just the negotiation of license costs, but all cost aspects both now and in the future of your integration strategy.
Click here to download the entire paper and make sure to explore the wealth of information available for downloading without registration in our document center.
Posted by expressor software at 8:45 AM | Comments (0)
February 15, 2010
expressor
expressor data integration expert Hugo Sheng examines the architecture and technology behind expressor's smart semantics, lifecycle management, throughput and role-based development.
http://www.expressor-software.com/deep-dive.htm
Posted by expressor software at 6:00 PM | Comments (0)
February 10, 2010
improving your data integration performance for Microsoft SQL Server
On March 11, expressor will be sponsoring a webinar on this topic with guest speaker Andy Leonard, an accomplished architect, SQL Server database and Integration Services developer, SQL Server MVP, PASS Regional Mentor, and engineer. Andy will be talking about known product complexities in SSIS and how to work around them. Following his talk will be a presentation by Michael Ruland, our director of field engineering, on how expressor can complement SSIS to enable SQL Server customers to build high-performance, complex data integration applications at an affordable cost.
Posted by expressor software at 6:00 PM | Comments (0)
February 5, 2010
SQLSaturday #34 (Boston) recap
expressor co-sponsored this event last Saturday, Jan 30, at the Microsoft office in Waltham, MA.
This training event was very well organized and there were at least 300 attendees at the venue during the day. We had a great reception at our exhibitor booth and were able to interact with over 100 attendees at our booth.
Many of the attendees we talked to are already using or planning to use SSIS, which confirms that the SQL Server community is increasingly embracing ETL technology. SSIS folks generally like the product but are very much aware of the limitations it has. We handed out a survey at this event were we asked booth visitors to answer a few questions aimed at finding out common pain points SSIS users have. Here is what they had to say:
- migrating SSIS packages from development, through testing, into production is very painful
- achieving good SSIS performance can be a difficult task and often requires serious performance tuning
- it is difficult to handle complex transformations such as multi-step business rules, complex multi-joins, multi-level aggregations, etc
- it is difficult to integrate non-Microsoft data sources (e.g. Oracle)
These survey results are very much in line with what we are hearing from our SSIS customers and sales prospects.
During lunch time, Michael Ruland, our director of field engineering, gave another great 45 minute technical overview presentation, which was well attended and received by the audience. Michael's presentation can be viewed by clicking here.
In summary, this was another great SQLSaturday event for us - and it is good to be amidst a vibrant SQL Server community that is very upbeat about the SQL Server product. As it regards expressor, we have a great opportunity to complement SSIS in SQL Server ETL projects where customers need enterprise-class performance, lifecycle management, and heterogeneous data integration capabilities.
On to the next SQLSaturday event in mid March.
Michael Waclawiczek, VP Marketing
Posted by expressor software at 5:45 PM | Comments (0)
January 31, 2010
expressor expands into smb market
I just had a chance to read Rick Sherman's latest blog on important trends in data integration for 2010 and what stuck out to me was trend 5 which asserts that ETL is expanding into the SMB market.
In my view, Rick is completely right that this expansion is taking place. I am witnessing it every day as we market and sell our highly affordable, enterprise-class ETL tool to a growing number of SMBs who are increasingly facing similar data management and integration challenges that you find in G2000 companies.
In addition to expressor's focus on the higher-end of the SMB market, SMBs are also increasingly using free database such as SSIS and open source tools to tackle basic ETL tasks instead of continuing to hand code these types of smaller applications.
Michael Waclawiczek, VP Marketing
Posted by expressor software at 5:45 PM | Comments (0)
January 29, 2010
insight series: creating drawings with expressor illustrator
expressor illustrator is a graphical interface based on Microsoft Visio that application developers use to creating data-flow diagrams, called "drawings" in expressor. expressor illustrator drawings are comprised of expressor processor image, network and channel descriptions, and connectors (called "motors" in expressor) and operators.
expressor illustrator -- Microsoft Visio based application used by ETL developers to build expressor drawings
Only individuals assigned to an ETL developer role can open an illustrator project. Developers use illustrator to design a data integration application as one or more drawings. expressor illustrator stores its artifacts in the expressor repositor version control system so individual developers have access to all the illustrator drawings and other artifacts comprising the project.
To create a drawing in illustrator, you highlight the project in which to include the drawing and, if necessary, check the project out of the repositor version control system. When you bring up a blank drawing, you will see a number of shapes representing the processor motors and operators.
expressor shapes are classified in functional groups.
- collate: operators for collating, grouping and identifying a specific record in a collection of records
- data-in: motors that retrieve data records from external sources and submits these records to the application
- data-out: motors that send records from the application to external sources
- database: motors that retrieve and submit data records to external relational database management systems
- partition: operators that merge, replicate or partition data records
- sort: operators that sort and merge data records
- transform: operators that manipulate (modify, delete, extend) the content of data records
- utility: operators that provide various support functions, such as generating test data
You create a drawing by simply dragging and dropping shapes onto the Visio drawing, then using the Connector Tool to establish the data flow in the drawing. For each shape, the expressor message panel at the bottom of drawing panel lists warnings, errors and tasks that must be addressed before the drawing is valid.
Shape color is a visual clue to the correctness of its configuration. When it is first added to a drawing, a shape is yellow, indicating that its configuration options have not been set. White indicates that a shape has been properly configured.
Colors other than white can indicate a correctly configured shape and provide additional information about how the shape's processing will be performed. For example, turquoise indicates that the processing will use memory to store processing intermediates, red indicates that the processing will discard data, and orange indicates that data is being filtered.
To save a drawing, select File > Save. The drawing is saved into the project as a Microsoft Visio XML Drawing (.vdx extension). You do not need to supply the extension when you name the file.
John Lifter, expressor training and documentation
Posted by expressor software at 11:45 AM | Comments (1)
January 25, 2010
expressor at SQLSaturday Tampa
There is a growing phenomenon within the Microsoft user community with events known as SQLSaturdays. These are all day meetings held on Saturdays (hence the name!) hosted by local SQL Server user groups. expressor just returned from the Tampa SQLSaturday event, where we were a Platinum sponsor.
It was a terrific day with over 400 registrants and nearly 300 attendees. While the attendees were interested in a wide variety of topics, we received very positive feedback, and quite a few sales opportunities with the message that expressor can "turbocharge" SQL Server SSIS applications. Attendees were crowded around our exhibitor station all day learning more about how expressor can complement SSIS implementations that have hit the wall when encountering higher data volumes, complex data, complex transformations or heterogeneous environments. As one of our visitors noted, "It's great to have an upgrade path for our ETL platform that won't cost us six figures."
Thanks to the organizers of this grass roots event. We look forward to participating in our next SQLSaturday event this coming weekend in Waltham, MA.
Frank Fallon, VP of Sales and Business Dev
Posted by expressor software at 11:30 AM | Comments (0)
January 20, 2010
is expressor complementary to SSIS?
Last week we had a briefing with a well-known and highly respected Microsoft SQL Server MVP, whom I won't mention by name as I haven't asked him for permission to do so.
The main goal of our meeting was to discuss our product in detail and to find out if our value proposition will resonate with SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) customers and users.
Fortunately for us, this particular MVP felt extremely positive about expressor and said that expressor in his view is very much complementary to SSIS. By the way, the MVP entered the conversation thinking that expressor might compete with SSIS, which in his opinion would not go down well with the existing SSIS community, which generally likes SSIS and is satisfied with using it for basic ETL tasks.
So how does expressor complement SSIS? The answer is quite simple. If you or your team encounters one or more of these types of SSIS issues, expressor might very well be the solution for you:
1. You require support for team-based application development, something SSIS doesn't offer today.
2. You run into performance issues that you find hard to overcome even though you spent time optimizing your SSIS packages.
3. You find it too painful to map heterogeneous data sources, e.g. Oracle or DB2, to a SQL Server. Or you even find it hard to map data between two SQL Server databases.
4. You experience that writing and troubleshooting complex scripts in SSIS is just too hard.
These are some of the reasons why expressor can truly be a complementary product for SSIS customers. We designed and developed our product to address these types of usage, performance and complexity issues, and offer these capabilities at an affordable price, which is key to all SSIS customers.
- Michael Waclawiczek, VP marketing
Posted by expressor software at 10:45 AM | Comments (0)
January 14, 2010
expressor posts strong Q4
expressor just announced it closed 2009 with a strong Q4 - which included four new customers, the introduction of its new 'expressor expressway' methodology and aggressive expansion into the small-to-medium business (SMB) market served by Microsoft SQL Server.
expressor signed new licensing transactions in Q4 with Baseline Management, Integrated DNA, STi Prepaid and a major US health benefits company.
In addition to exhibiting at the PASS Summit - covered previously in this blog -- expressor is building awareness with Microsoft SSIS users by sponsoring several SQL Saturday user group training events scheduled in Q1 2010 as well as a webinar to be conducted with SQL Server Magazine in March.
The company's new expressor expressway methodology will become available in Q1 2010 and be free for expressor users.
expressor also added another data integration expert: Hugo Sheng, who joined the company as a director of field engineering and was previously worldwide technical sales operations manager for IBM's InfoSphere group.
Click here to access the full press release.
- Steve Casey, marketing
Posted by expressor software at 12:15 PM | Comments (0)
Insight series: expressor projects
This is the second in a series of mini-tutorials designed to provide insight into expressor's features and capabilities. In this particular blog, I'll explain some of the basics of an expressor project, which is the foundation for building an expressor data integration application.
Each project is composed of:
- image files - describing the data records being processed
- network files - describing where the data for each step of the application is located
- configuration files - describing runtime environment settings, parameters and values
- drawing files - describing data flows and transformations
Projects also include relevant data on role assignments, server names and security credentials and policies.
The responsibilities for developing, testing, and deploying an expressor project are distributed across multiple roles established during project definition. To develop a new project, an architect, working with expressor administrator, creates the necessary networks and channels, images and configuration files and assigns the appropriate analysts, stewards and ETL developers.
Once defined, the project can be checked out by the individuals assigned to the project, who use expressor's administrator, constructor, initiator and illustrator tools to create additional project artifacts - as shown in the following diagram.
expressor's unique approach to project design, creation and management makes it easier to optimize your resources and improve application quality.
John Lifter, senior manager of education, expressor
Posted by expressor software at 12:15 PM | Comments (0)
